In Medvias Res
by The Purple Ghost
Summary: //“Retrieve me? Heero, you make me sound like the prized hunting dog! Don’t I get a say in this?” then she answered her own question, “Of course I don’t get a say! If I did, I wouldn’t be here in this dank little room!” Relena seethed. //
1. Blurry

Chapter 1: Blurry

Everything's so blurry   
and everyone's so fake   
everybody's empty   
and everything is so messed up   
preoccupied without you   
I cannot live at all   
my whole world surrounds you   
I stumble and I crawl  
& you could be my someone   
you can be my scene   
you know that I'll protect you   
from all of the obscene   
I wonder what your doing   
imagine where you are   
there's oceans in between us   
but that's not very far  
  
_(Chorus)_  
_can you take it all away _  
_can you take it all away _  
_well you shoved it in my face _  
_this pain you gave to me _  
_can you take it all away _  
_can you take it all away _  
_well you shoved it in my face _  
_this pain you gave to me_  
  
everyone is changing   
there's no one left that's real   
make up your own ending   
and let me know just how you feel   
cause I am lost without you   
I cannot live at all   
my whole world surrounds you   
I stumble then I crawl  
you could be my someone   
you can be my scene   
you know that I will save you   
from all of the unclean   
I wonder what your doing   
I wonder where you are   
there's oceans in between us   
but that's not very far  
  
_(Chorus)_  
  
Can you take it all away  
Can you take it all away  
well you shoved it in my face   
the pain you gave to me  
  
Nobody told me what you thought   
nobody told me what to say   
everyone showed you where to turn   
showed you when to run away  
nobody showed you where to hide   
nobody told you what to say   
everyone showed you where to turn   
showed you when to run away  
  
_(Chorus)_  
  
Can you take it all away   
can you take it all away  
can you take away the pain   
the pain you gave to me  
this pain you gave to me….

August 1915

Arabian Desert, near Baghdad

Slowly, surely--Like the flight of locust that advances with destructive certainty- the noise distant at first, grew louder.

   Kurdish peasants, who were taking advantage of a pause in the German bombardment to scrabble for water and bread, heard the muffled sound above the distant boom of British artillery. An old woman, swathed in tattered black rags heard the sound first. She stopped to listen as the wind blew clouds of dust up in the field pock marked by bombs dropped by the German Zeppelins. Resting a water jug on her hip she cocked her head with interest, her mind well aware of the danger these sounds could herald. One old, gnarled hand reached up to play with the blue worry beads around her neck before she hurried off across field toward her tent.

   Within a nearby military compound close to Basra, several British soldiers came rushing from their tents, shouting orders and trying to find decent cover.

  Nurse Relena Peacecraft had just departed the makeshift military hospital tent and was walking toward the kitchen for a much needed rest. This would be her first break since the moldy tasting coffee earlier this morning. It was now twilight, and Relena had heard the sounds of the Zeppelins more than a few times that day. In fact, over the last six months she had heard more than she cared to remember while serving in the Royal British Nursing Unit from Cairo. She continued on her way as if she was unaware of the sounds that announced impending doom.

   The distant buzzing of the Zeppelins engine grew louder. Within a few moments the British ground soldiers met the oncoming ship with artillery fire. Machine-gun fire battered the on-coming night, while the smoky haze settled against the horizon like the pall of death.

   Relena was numb to it all. '_If only it would rain a little in this God forsaken desert.' _At least the rain would ease the pestering flies that never seemed to die. The heat was also more than she could bear. What little breeze there was only managed to stir up more dust to cover her once white nurse uniform. The air was heavy with the smell of death and decay that seemed to be the norm around army hospitals on the front lines. 

  Relena had almost made it to the kitchen when she noticed that the Zeppelins had made it past the front line artillery. She could see the strange craft now in the sky above Basra, approaching like a great angel of death. At the same time, an open-topped British military vehicle came tearing at break neck speed around the corner of the nearest hospital tent. Gunfire erupted again, but this time it was must closer.

"Get DOWN!" a British soldier yelled at Relena as he and another man tumbled out and scrambled beneath the vehicle.

"He said GET DOWN!" Another soldier shouter as he ran toward her. Relena looked around for cover frantically. The nearest safe place she could see were the Hospital Tents packed to over flow with the wonder and dying. Atop the tent, whipping in the wind, was the flag with the Red Cross. Relena knew that the canvas would be precious little shelter, but that wasn't what kept her from running toward it. She turned back to the soldier in outrage.

"They can't bomb a hospital!"

The soldier didn't respond. The enemy craft was overhead now and the buzzing was deafening in Relena's ears. Relena watched as though frozen in disbelief as the German bombardier leaned out of the open aircraft and hand dropped bombs onto the military and field targets. She watched one of the black objects fall toward the bakery next to her. A deafening explosion rent the air. Time seemed to slow down, in the same instant, debris flew in all directions, and the tent was engulfed in a billowing black haze. The soldier still running toward Relena was blown to pieces, a cry of sheer horror was caught in her throat as the force of the explosion hit her and flung Relena backwards. She landed hard and lay there, stunned, unable to move or think.

  A wooden building exploded, adding more debris into the air. The ground convulsed as if it where alive and in pain. Leaping flames rampaged high against the darkening sky as though trying to reach heaven in diabolic rage. 

  The attack continued for several minutes. Vaguely Relena grew aware of a sound…something familiar…she closed her eyes in despair. The siren. It's too-late warning was blaring, cutting through the chaos of the military encampment.

Relena lay there, her face turn toward the vast sky, the hot dust burning into her back and legs. The absence of human voices hung eerily in the field moments after the bombing, but other sounds filled the night, like running feet and the sizzle of wood burning.

_'God…what?'_ Relena's mind cried over and over, trying to grasp what had just happened. Images of the poor soldier whose remains lay scattered like broken glass on the ground to her right, filled her mind. She didn't think she would ever forget that sight for the rest of her life.

"Miss…Miss, are you all right?" Relena blinked, suddenly aware ash was sprinkling her face. She felt an arm encircle her and gently lift her to a sitting position. She stared, wide eyed, forcing herself to focus on the face in front of her. A medic, young and scared looking, studied her, worry written in his brown eyes. Relena moistened her dry lips and forced words past her numb tongue.

 "I'm…fine"

He looked doubtful, and she reached out to push her blonde hair from her face. 

"Please," she insisted, "I'm all right. There are others that need your help."

He glanced behind him, face grim and dirt streaked, then nodded. 

"Okay, miss, if you say so. But you'd better sit here for a while until you get a bit steadier. Then---" he looked around them again, "---Then you'd better head for your tent. This is no place for a woman right now."

_'It's no place for anyone right now." _Relena thought sadly as the medic stood and moved away. Feeling suddenly bereft, quick tears burned in her throat, but she swallowed them down. She knew from personal experience that tears never helped anyone. 

  She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the sights and sounds of chaos to go away. In there place images flooded her mind. Rather than the god-forsaken, smoke filled sky above her; she saw the starry sky above a certain Arabian plain. She had been standing in the arms of Major Heero Yuy. She could almost feel the warm wind that had embraced them that night. The memory was so clear that Relena almost convinced herself that she was there. She could feel his determined yet tender grip on her arm. His riveting blue eyes had held hers for a moment, so full of promise for the future they would share…then he had dropped her arm and turned away. His words had rang loudly out over the plain even though they had been whispered, "I'll find you again, Relena."

Relena wanted to close her mind to the memory, but she couldn't. The remembrance was as relentless as the Zeppelin had been a mere moment before.

"Oh, Heero…why couldn't you keep your promise?" she whispered brokenly, grieving for the love that had died in the months that had stretched on after that night without any form of contact between them. 

She remembered how he had told her that working on her brother's medical ship, sailing down the Nile, was where she should be. Heero had told her he wished for her to stay in Cairo where everything was pristine white…told her she wasn't suited for life at the front lines.

She had showed him. That was half the reason she was here. When he hadn't contacted her, Relena had set out to prove the arrogant Major wrong. The war to end all wars had rampaged across Europe and had arrived at her back door in Arabia. Relena desided that Milliardo and Lucrezdia could take care of the _Peacemillion_ without her help, after all they were both capable people, and the front lines needed nurses with experience. That was how she found herself sitting here in the dirt with people dying all around her.

"Relena!"

At the sound of her name, Relena blinked out of the half stupor she had fallen into. It took her a minute to find her comrade-in-medical arms, Cathy Bloom, in the haze. Cathy knelt beside Relena, checking her out for any wounds.

"Thank goodness your okay Lena!" came the chirpy tone of her ever-happy friend. Even in the mist of danger and despair Cathy could pick up Relena's spirits. Before Relena could respond, Cathy lifted her to her feet as if she were a child. Relena came to her feet and stood there swaying. For a moment it looked like Cathy wouldn't be strong enough to hold them both up. Relena wanted to protest, but she found she couldn't speak. The world was spinning out of control, taking Relena with it. Cathy struggled forward, half carrying Relena through the dirt, breathing in ragged gasps. Suddenly she halted and called out to a passing man.

"Ho, there! Captain Winner! Lend me a hand, sir, with Relena? She seems to have fainted."

~*~*~*~*~*~

Captain Quatre Winner, head medical orderly in the nursing unit sent up from Cairo, gently laid Relena on the bunk in the large tent near the back of the main hospital. Quatre held his worry in check, fully aware of Nurse Cathy Bloom's hawk-like eyes. Sometimes he felt like he himself were the patient under scrutiny when she was around. Nothing ever got by her notice. Like his reason for giving up his position at a Cairo hospital to trapes about after his child-hood friend in this hellhole. Simply put, he was in love with Relena Peacecraft. All the nurses had picked up on this fact in the six months they'd been stationed on the Arabian front. They had also picked up on the fact that Relena didn't return his feelings at all—hence their sympathetic glances. But only Quatre knew why she didn't return his feelings. The oh-so-very-absent Intelligence officer, Major Heero Yuy.

"Is it a concussion?" Cathy asked, pulling him from his thoughts. Quatre shook his head.

"Most likely it was just the shock hitting her. She'll do well enough considering the poor Tommy was blown to bits." He kept his tone professional, an effective cover, he hoped, as he bent over the bunk and checked Relena's eyes. They seemed to dilate fine. He quickly looked away before he was temped to drown in her blue gaze. Instead he inspected her face carefully. If was streaked with dust and blood from the small cut above her eye. Quatre reached for a cloth and began to gently clean the cut. He'd learned early on that out here even small cuts could kill you. In her unconscious state, Relena winced as he daubed the injury. A moment later Quatre stood up straight and cleared his throat. He turned to Cathy to ask for a bandage but found that she wasn't looking his way anymore. She was distracted by the sound of more wounded being carried into the hot, over crowded hospital tent. Their moaning almost drowned out the orders Dr.Po was screaming at the top of her lungs. Quatre and Cathy sprang to do the Doctor's bidding with out thought.

"Winner, I could have you court marshaled for this! Where have you been? Don't you know men are dying?"

"Yes ma'am! Nurse Peacecraft was inj-"

"The Tommies come first! Do you understand?!" Steeling his emotions against the rebuke, Quatre felt his face grow hot and he clamped his jaw shut. He quickly took up position on the other side of the blue-eyed military doctor while the stretcher-bearers hauled even more wounded in around them. The only female Doctor on the front lines, Sally Po was a stern taskmaster. She jerked back the cover to check whether of not she could save the man on the table in front of them. Quatre tried his best not to flinch at the sight of the gaping hole in the soldier's abdomen. He glanced at Cathy to see how she was holding up. She didn't look away from the bloody mess at all. Quatre had to admire her for her courage. He wanted to look anywhere but at the patient, but he knew that to jerk away in horror would end his service here. Dr. Po was already looking for any opportunity to send him back to Cairo. She'd made it very clear that she didn't like the reason he was hear. 

"If you want to act like a love sick pup and follow a girl to war then fine. But don't do it on my time. Lives could be lost if you don't put your whole heart into this." She had told him on more than one occasion. Quatre didn't have the words to explain it to the Doctor, nor did he think Sally would understand. Not that she couldn't, she just chose not too.

  As Quatre stared at the soldier on the table he was unprepared for the wave of nausea that threatened to take him to his knees. '_God, if your up there, help me. Don't let me dis-grace myself further.'_

~*~*~*~*~*~

Hours later, Quatre at last took a break outdoors, hoping against hope that he could find a mug of coffee. He'd uttered a heart felt sigh when he could finally turn his duties over to the tall British girl, Flora and step out side. The dry wind was blowing in gusts, sending sand into every crack and crevice it could find. He even had it in his teeth. 

  Ahead, several soldiers were on guard. Quatre stood beneath the tent awning, listing to the canvas snapping. He walked over to a small sheltered campfire beside one of the newly constructed cook tents, where a huge blackened coffeepot sat full and steaming. As he glanced around for a mug he began to understand why the pot remained full. There were no mugs.

_'Yes, this has been my lucky day.'_

Quatre was startled from his longing stair at the pot by a voice to his right.

"Allow me, sir."

Quatre couldn't see him well in the dim lantern light, but the soldier that stood before him had a certain familiar air to him. The wind tugged at the man's long brown hair that hung in a braid down his side. He produced a tin cup from his backpack, poured the coffee, and then handed it to Quatre with a grin.

"Here you go Q-man."

 The voice jarred Quatre's memory, and Quatre gave him a closer look.  A memory from his childhood in British held India flashed before his eyes. Quatre had been a very lonely boy growing up with so many sisters. It didn't help much that his father was a top official for the British East India Company. One day Quatre had ran away from his mother in the market place. There he had met a street urchin named Duo. 

"Duo?" The Captain looked closer at the man in the fading light, "Is it really you?"

"In the flesh!" They young man doffed his hat to his old friend.

"But…what are you doing here? Why, the last time I saw you…you were going to Jerusalem…." Quatre left his sentence hanging. The last he'd heard, Duo had been captured in Jerusalem as a spy. Duo's face lost its happy glaze.

"Well, Q-man, that's a story that can wait until I have a bigger audience. As for why I'm here." Duo raised his arm to show off the Red Cross on his armband, "I'm a Corporal in the 6th Camel Brigade." 

At Quatre's puzzled look Duo went on to explain, "I'm over a unit of the new ambulance camels." His grin was wide as Quatre finally figured it out. The "ambulance camels" consisted of two beast with a stretcher strung between them. 

"Oh, yes. I had heard of that. Wasn't that the brain child of a certain intelligence officer?"

"Sure was. Major Heero Yuy. You have to have political connections old man." Quatre almost cursed. That man was involved with _everything._ Duo noticed the expression on his old friends face but he desided not to pry.

"So, have you heard for Relena lately?" Duo asked.

Distracted by the news of the Major, Quatre was barley listening, "Of course I have. I cleaned her cut a couple of hours ago."

"What? She's here!? Was she hurt?!" His shocked voice broke into Quatre's thoughts.

"Yes, Relena's here. I tried to talk her out of it but…" Quatre raised his hands in a hopeless gesture. Duo swore under his breath.

"I leave you two alone for just two years and you mange to end up in the most hopeless front line position possible!"

Quatre hung his head. Duo had saved hem from harm more than once in India. Duo just kept on ranting, "I thought Heero said she'd be with Milliardo on the _Peacemillion." _ 

"Well, she desided that Mill and Lu could---Wait did you say Heero? As in Major Heero Yuy?" Duo looked at his long time friend in puzzlement.

"Yeah, I met him in Jerusalem. Why?" Duo could since that something was really bothering the smaller man.

Quatre sighed.

"Nothing, it just seems that that man pops up every where I look."

Duo scratched his head thoughtfully, "Now that you mention it, his name does come up a lot, but enough about the Major, doesn't Sir Peacecraft know his daughter is here?"

"No, but he'll be returning from Bombay to Cairo soon," said Quatre. "She want be here much longer I'd wager. Her father will want her out of here."

Both Quatre and Duo knew Sir Benjamin Peacecraft well. He was a kind but gruff man who had treated Duo just the same as he had treated the son of the English governor of India. As children the three of them would gather around him after dinner to listen to his stories of adventure. Both men would rather die by sever torture before doing anything to displease him.

"When I first realized how hopeless this front was I went to the Major General. I asked him if he could transfer Relena to a safety zone like Alexandria or even Cairo." Quatre shook his head and took a drink of his cooling coffee. 

"His only answer was that she was a grown woman and could decide for herself."

"Did he know what her father is a friend and adviser to Secretary of War Kitchern?" Duo wanted to know.

"I pointed that out, but all Major General Crawford did was laugh and say that Sir Peacecraft would be as proud as aces when he heard of his daughters bravery." Quatre tossed the dregs of his now cold coffee into the fire. The flames sizzled and popped loudly in the desert night.

"Well, Q-man, as I see it, you've done all you can. I'll try to pull some strings of my own tomorrow. With any luck I'll be able to get her out of here soon." Duo stood up from his seat by the fire and brushed off the sand the clung to his canvass pants.

"What do you mean, your connections Duo? I tried pulling all of mine as the son of the Governor of India but it was hopeless."

"I told you, "He answered good naturedly. "I may be just a corporal, but I've friends you wouldn't believe. All in powerful places—Cairo Intelligence, back home in British India, even a German Baroness now deigns to call me a friend in arms." Duo flashed another smile.

"So you just leave getting you both out to me, I want you to keep her out of trouble until then though." Duo patted the younger man on the shoulder as he walked away toward where the camels were kept. Duo stopped and turned around.

"Hey, I'd like to see Relena. I only have a few hours more off before my crew has to go back out." Quatre shrugged.

"She's off duty right now because of the injury she sustained during the Zeppelin raid."

"You're sure she's okay?" came Duo's low urgent voice.

"She's in a bit of shock, mild concussion, a few rather nasty bruises. But it could have been much worse. There was a poor Tommie blown to bits right in front of her. Wasn't enough of him to even scrape up into an envelope to send home of his mum." He looked away, troubled. "God knows the situation can always get worse, but I'm beginning to wonder how."

Dou's voice came to him calm and ominously quiet as he looked off toward the Mediterranean. "The Huns have nothing on the Turks when it comes to making things worse."

Quatre didn't want to know how Dou knew that. He was just so sick and tired of butchery and he could do without the personal tail of torture that Duo's words would reveal. In the months he'd been stationed here he'd seen so many good men hauled into the hospital tent limbless, blind, horribly scared both mentally and physically---and worse.

"When can I see Relena?" Duo gently asked again to remind his old friend what they had been discussing. Quatre watched to wind whip through the tent village for a moment, then he shook his head.

"She may not be up to a visit, but if she is I see no reason for you not to talk to her and catch up on the last two years. Go on, and bring her some tea. You'll find the kitchen over there." He waved vaguely toward the east end of the encampment. "That is, if it's still standing. For all I know that Zeppelin bomb might have blown it to smithereens too."

Quatre noticed a familiar face walking past him and he waved, "Hey, Catharine! Could you escort the corporal here to Nurse Peacecraft? Oh, and show him where he can make her some tea, if you will?" As Catharine walked across the sand toward them, Quatre looked at Duo. "I'd better get back to the hospital tent. Doctor Po will need a break soon. We have 15 new patients to keep alive tonight."

Duo left after that with Catharine cheerfully chattering to him, and Quatre went back into the hospital tent. He had only been there for an hour when he heard the news. It seemed that Major General Crawford would receive an important British military and civilian delegation from India, perhaps in the next few days, if their ship could sneak past a Turkish destroyer in the Persian Gulf. 

  Quatre was pretty sure he knew what brought the top brass to Basra to confer with the military here. As he scanned the hundreds of wounded he tried to fight back feelings of despair that tried to drown his heart. When it came to relieving the suffering of these men his heart was fully involved, but he cared little about fighting battles, and he knew even less about military tactics. Even so, it was as plain as the nose on his face to him that the British couldn't hold this line much longer. If new troops didn't arrive soon, those unfortunate enough to be around—including Relena, Catharine, and the other nurses---would be over run.

TBC…

Okay, I'll admit it. This story is modeled after a book that is close to my heart. Now, I'm not going to copy it…just use it for some guidance and information on this time period.

This book is called _Lion's of the Desert_ by Linda Chaikin. I don't own this book although I've read it about 20 times…I don't own any of the Characters from Gundam Wing either. I think that just about covers it. Also the song Blurry isn't mine…but I have forgotten who it really belongs too…so ya'know…tell me if you can…

Love Bunchies,

Hitomi Lei


	2. Life on My Own

Life of my Own

Living risky, never scared, wander  
Closer to the edge  
Nothing valued think no fear, always  
Wondering why you're here  
All your purposes are gone, nothing's  
Right and nothing's wrong  
Nothing ventured, nothing gained  
Feel no sorrow, feel no pain

Kiss me while I'm still alive  
Kill me while I kiss the sky  
Let me die on my own terms, let me  
Live and let me learn  
Now I'll follow my own way, and I'll  
Live on to another damn day  
Freedom carries sacrifice, remember  
When this was my life

Looking forward, not behind  
Everybody's got to cross that line  
Free me now to give me a place,  
Keep me caged and free the beast  
Falling faster, time goes by, fear is  
Not seen through these eyes  
What there was will never be, now  
I'm blind and cannot see

Kiss me while I'm still alive  
Kill me while I kiss the sky  
Let me die on my own terms, let  
Me live and let me learn  
Now I'll follow my own way, and I'll  
Live on to another damn day  
Freedom carries sacrifice, remember  
When this was my life

Kiss me while I'm still alive  
Kill me while I kiss the sky  
Let me die on my own terms, let  
Me live and let me learn  
Now I'll follow my own way, and  
I'll live on to another damn day  
Freedom carries sacrifice,   
Remember when this was my life

   A faint blush of rose spread across the sky as the Sun began chasing the darkness of the Arabian night away. Slowly the stars reseeded back with the darkness as the first hot rays of the sun began to reflect off the sand. Nurse Relena Peacecraft lay on her small cot in the tent she shared with two other nurses. She was supposed to be sleeping, but the images of the soldier being blown to bits as he tried to help her consumed her thoughts. Relena sighed and turned over onto her back to stair at the off colored cloth that made up the top of the tent. She fancied that the brown mildewed water stain above her looked like a bird, and the one over Hilde's trunk looked like a rabbit. Then Relena blinked, and the animals that had danced across the ceiling above her turned back into ugly brown stains; eternal reminders that if it were to rain, her pillow would get wet.

   From out side the tent the sounds of heavy footsteps stopped in front of her tent flap. The silhouette that the sun cast onto the cloth told her that it wasn't Quatre coming to check on her. Relena reached under her pillow for the small gun she kept there at all times. Mill had given it to her on the eve of her departure to the front. It was small and light, just right for her hand. Relena kept it under her pillow because it made her feel safe, and connected to her beloved brother. The tent opening moved slightly and Relena sat up and raised her gun. The flap moved more to the right and someone eased his head inside.

"Ya' know princess, I know it's been a long time, but lets remember those pacifist ideals you used to preach about." Relena quickly stuck the gun under her pillow again and stood up to hug Duo in the small confines of the tent.

"Dou!! God, what are you doing here? I thought you where in Jerusalem! Never mind that…just…are you okay?" Relena pulled away to look up into his smiling face. She noticed new scars and maybe a worry line or two, but other than that he was the same boy she had known in Burma. 

"Well, well, what have we here? The ever so virtuous Relena Peacecraft is entertaining men in her room? What will people think?" Relena winced slightly and pulled away from Duo.

"I'm sorry Hilde, here let me introduce you to Duo Maxwell, a friend of mine from India." Duo turned to see a petit dark haired woman with navy blue eyes shining with anger. 

"Well, lover boy, I really don't care who you are or where you came from. Your blocking my way to my cot, and I suggest that you move." Duo raised his eyebrow at her tone. It had been a long time since he'd hear such outright sarcasm. Well, it had been since he'd last seen Relena's sister Dorothy.

"Hey, he is not my lover!" Relena said in indignation. Hilde just rolled her eyes.

"Save me the drama Relena. I've just worked 3 shifts and I haven't slept in about 34 hours." Hilde pushed past Dou and Relena to collapse on her corner cot. Relena grabbed Duo's arm to pull him out of the tent, but he just couldn't pass up on the chance to say something to the slurry woman.

"Well, it was nice meeting you too, sour puss." Hilde raised her head from the pillow just in time to see the tall man bow to her and back out of the tent. She smirked and reached for the heavy book of photos that Cathy loved so much.

"Uhm…Duo…you might not want to stand so close to the tent." Relena warned him.

"Why do you say that princess?" Just as he asked a heavy book came flying out of the tent and smacked him right in the head.

"Bloody hell, woman that hurt!" Duo rubbed his head and glared at the tent opening.

"That's Miss Sour Puss to you!" Came Hilde's voice from inside the tent. Relena shook her head at Duo's pained and bemused expression.

"I warned you."

"So, I thought all was lost! They had me tied up and thrown over the back of a camel! I was so sure that those Arabs were taking me somewhere where no one would hear my screams as they tortured me! But was I ever wrong!!" Duo stopped to take a sip of his weak tea. Relena grinned at her friend from across the table. Duo made his capture funny as he retold it, but a certain aged quality in his eyes told her a different story. 

"Well, these Arabs brought me to this woman who was dressed all in black. This woman tells me that the Turks are looking for me and she's going to protect me! Can you imagine my surprise? This woman, this ARAB woman says she's going to save my Jewish ass? In a matter of minutes her people had me dressed just like sheik and hiding among them. I lived there for two months before she thought it was safe for me to leave. I still don't know her name." Duo sat back thoughtfully. Relena looked down into the tea he had made for her. She remembered when her brother had told her the news of Dou's capture. She had been so worried for him, now looking at the young man before her she had to wonder if things had gone as easy as he made them sound.

"Well, you know how I'm still on this planet, now it's my turn. Why in the seven hell are you here of all places?" Duo's voice had lost its laughter. He was dead serious as he leaned over the table in the mess hall. Relena squirmed a little in her seat.

"Well…I-I thought I'd be more useful here than on the _Peacemillion._" She reached up to nervously tug at the sandy brown hair hanging from her lose bun. Duo noticed this sign that she was uncomfortable but he didn't let up.

"Does Mill know where you are? Does he know that his 19 year old sister is trying to commit suicide?" 

"I am NOT trying to commit suicide Duo. I'm just needed here. And really, suicide? It's not that bad here." Relena tried to look him in the eye but could only stair at the bridge of his nose.

"You didn't answer my question." Duo wasn't buying her evasion.

"I don't see it as any of your business! Milliardo totally supports me." Relena felt her anger rise up inside her. Duo had no right to leave for two years and then come tearing into her life, but if he noticed her anger he gave no indication of it.

"Does he know?" Duo asked again calmly.

"Oh alright! No, Milliardo thought I was going to be stationed in Abadan. He even thought that was too close, but I convinced him to just give me a gun. But Duo, if you tell Milliardo that I'm here he would only worry!! And Lu doesn't need the added stress with the baby coming so soon!" Relena reached across the table and grabbed Duo's sleeve. She was desperate for her secret to be kept. 

"Do you know what you're asking me? How am I supposed to sleep at night knowing you, of all people, are here?!" Duo ran his free hand through his hair in agitation. He could just imagine the beating Heero would give him when he found out that Relena was here. 

"Quatre knows and he doesn't tattle!" Relena declared hotly, "I'm a grown woman and I can make my own choices!" She felt an angry blush come to her cheeks. Couldn't he see that she was needed here? For the first time in her life she was really making a difference!

"Don't you dare bring Quatre into this, Relena. He gave up a promising career as a doctor to follow you out to this hellhole. And all because you bullied him into not telling when he found out about your death wish! If your not worried about yourself, at least tell me you worry that he might be killed." Duo leaned over his child hood friend and looked her straight in the eye. He knew his words were hurting her, but Relena had to be convinced to go back home. Relena rose jerkily. The bench she had been sitting on slowly tipped over and loudly hit the floor. A few people close by stopped talking and looked up.

"Quatre knew what he was getting in to. Probably better than I did." She was looking down at the table using her bangs to hide her eyes. Her voice sounded…tired. "I have to go on duty now, maybe I'll see you later." Relena left Duo standing there in the midst of the loud mess hall.

_'Relena, why are you doing this? Why?'_ Duo sat back done and put his head in his palms. Around him he heard a few murmurs of "Lovers Quarrel."

"Well, that didn't go so well did it?" Duo swallowed the last of his tea and smiled grimly. He looked over at some of his neighbors.

"Well gents, I'm going to go make out my will." Several of them laughed at his joke although they didn't know what it was about. Duo walked outside in the bright Arabian sunshine. He squinted up at the sun and rubbed the back of his head.

"Yep, the Major will be here tomorrow and I'll most likely die."

Instead of heading directly to the Medical Tent, Relena detoured back to the smaller tent she shared with the others. Her head was pounding, either from the concussion she'd received the day before, or because of the conversation she'd had with Duo minutes ago. Relena reached up to rub softly at her temple.

_'Maybe Duo's right…No I can't let myself think like that.'  _

As quietly as she could Relena opened the flap. Hilde was laying with her back to the opening so Relena assumed she was sleeping. Relena shook her head and smiled slightly. Yes, her fellow nurse was a bit prickly at times, but Relena enjoyed her company anyway. She sat down with a small sigh. In truth she didn't have to go back to the hospital for about 30 minutes. She closed her eyes and lay back on the cot. It gave a loud squeak as she shifted her weight then was quiet.

_'If I could just sleep for a few minutes this terrible headache will go way.' _She tried to convince herself as she listened to Hilde's even breathing from across the room. Sleep didn't visit her as she had hoped, but memories did.

_~Flashback~_

_The Egyptian sun peeked out from under dark storm clouds as a young woman made her way through the market place. She was trying to beat the rain that was fast approaching upon the horizon but the fat raindrop that landed on her nose told her she wasn't going win this battle with nature. The wind picked up and the street venders started to yell back and forth to each other in rapid Egyptian. Relena ignored the hustle going on around her as she picked up her long skirts and walked as fast she could with all her purchase towards the safety of her awaiting vehicle. _

_'Ah…If I don't get there soon I'm going to get drenched. If I take this alleyway it should bring me near Anwar and the car.' She mused to herself. She wasn't worried that the alleyway was dark; thoughts of the darker side of human nature never crossed her mind. Relena turned into the darkness, ignoring the smell of refuse and rotten vegetables coming from the gutter. She picked her way gently throw the puddles of mud and other things. Out of the corner of her eye something moved._

_'Was that a rat? No. I'm not going to think about rats. Of course there are no giant rats in this ally. No it's just me here.' She kept on repeating this to herself, almost like a prayer, as she walked._

_"You will tell me what I want to know." The voice came from up ahead and sent a chill down Relena's spine. The total lack of emotion in that voice made her feet stop responding to the messages her brain was sending them. Instead they moved her deeper into the shadows, where she hoped she was hidden from whom ever was up in front of her._

_"What if I don't know what you want?" The other voice was mocking._

_"Then I'll kill you." Relena heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked, "Then I'll just leave you here for the rats to feast on." Relena swallowed with trouble._

_'How do I leave without them seeing me now? And Lord did he say Rats? I want out of here now!'_

_"You can't kill me, English scum! Because there is a small chance I have what you want, no?" Relena cringed at the arrogance in that voice. Didn't he realize he was dealing with someone who meant business?_

_"I'm beginning to think I don't need what you have as much as I thought. I mean, I can easily find out whom you sold those secrets to. I just thought it would be easier to find out from you." The unknown mans voice had turned deadly cold._

_"You never meant to let me live did you?" The others voice now had an element of fear. Relena got another chill when she heard the heartless reply._

_"No." The gunshot was barley heard over the sudden roll of thunder. Relena managed not to scream at the sound of a body hitting the ground with a sickening thud. That is until she felt something furry brush against her leg. She let out a muffled scream and vacated her hiding spot quickly. It wasn't until strong hands clamped down upon her mouth and she heard a menacing voice in her ear that she knew she was in trouble._

_"How long have you been standing there, madam?" _

_"Not…Not l-l-long at all, I swear!" His hand loosened just enough for her to speak She had dropped her basket when he had grabbed her, and she absently wondered if the apples would be bruised._

_"I think your lying to me." That emotionless tone was back and Relena felt her knees tremble._

_"No, no I didn't hear anything. I didn't see anything. When you shot him a rat—" Too late she realized her error._

_"So you where lying weren't you? I'll have to kill you now." His hand tightened around her mouth again when he said this so that she couldn't scream. Relena felt the barrel of the gun press gently against the back of her head. Her eyes went wide and she started to struggle. The man grunted as she stepped on his foot and he swung her around to press her against the wall._

_From the other end of the ally there was a shout and the sound of running feet. The man behind her swore and pulled her away from the wall._

_"Come on. We have to get out of here." Relena wanted to refuse, but he still had his gun pointed at her head. _

_From one darkened ally to another he pulled her. Relena soon lost all since of direction and time. All she was aware of was the pain in her arm where his hand gripped her. She tired not to stumble but it was nearly impossible. He slowed down for just a moment and listened._

_"Okay, we're going inside here. Don't say a word or I'll make sure it's your last." Relena barely nodded her head before she felt the gun being pulled away. In the dim light she could see his smirk._

_"Good girl." The man knocked a strange pattern on the stone door before it was jerked open inward. It was pitch black on the other side of that door but Relena didn't have time to balk. Unseen hands griped and pulled at her clothes and hair she stifled a gasp and felt his grip tighten on her arm. Suddenly there was a small flicker of light as a candle was lit. Relena could now see vague images of the people and the room she was in. Her eyes widened a fraction as one of the men standing close to her grinned, his dark stained teeth gleamed in the half darkness and he licked his lips. Relena found herself moving closer to her capture's back. He might have plans to kill her, but she didn't think he'd molest her before that._

_"What brings you here, English sir?" Relena could barely make out the words they were so heavily accented._

_"I need to get to the Tarak Market." He didn't look at her as she moved closer to her side, but he did remove his hand from her arm. For a brief moment she thought he was giving her over to the mercies of the man beside her. He obviously thought the same thing because he reached for her. Her capture shot the greasy little man a glare that promised death and wrapped a possessive arm around her waist. She was pulled close to his side. Relena knew she shouldn't feel so safe in his arms, but she did._

_"Of course we would be happy to do this for you but our good friend Nefer was just, how should we say, killed by gunshot there. It would be unwise for you to go there." Relena could feel the muscles in his chest tense. Then a strange thing happened. The Egyptian man started laughing. In was a bawdy, course laugh, but she could feel her capture relax._

_"We, will I think, let you and your woman pass. Ay!" The little man who had been eyeing her with such evil intent moved to his master's side. "Take them where they wish to go." Soon Relena was again stumbling through the darkness, but this time his touch was gentler._

_~End Flashback~_

Relena sighed at the memory of her first meeting with the major. When they had finally emerged out into the light the storm had passed. Without a word he had lead her to where her driver had parked the car. She never found out how he had known where it was parked. A week later her mother had hosted a dinner party for some of her father's acquaintances. Relena had been very shocked to realize that the man bent over her hand was none other than her dark capture. Her breath had stuck in her throat at the smirk on his face. Benjamin Peacecraft had introduced them at that time. Major Heero Yuy, Cairo Police and British Intelligence. That had been the start of a whirlwind summer romance.

_'I wish I'd never walked into that alleyway.'_ She sighed again and sat up. There was no point trying to sleep if the memories of that summer were going to plague her. Relena heard a rustle of covers and watched Hilde sit up in bed too.

"Look, I'm sorry if I embarrassed you." Hilde spoke with out looking at Relena.

"What do you mean? What do I have to be embarrassed about?" Relena looked over at her friend with some confusion.

"Don't make this harder than it already is, Lena. If your mad at me for the way I acted in front of lover boy then I'm sorry!" Hilde said the words through gritted teeth. Suddenly in dawned on Relena what the other nurse had been speaking about. Relena couldn't help herself, she laughed aloud, although she tried to hide it behind her hands.

"You thought I was angry about that?" She was still trying to stifle her giggles.

"Well, you kept on sighing…I just thought…you know…" Hilde was actually blushing over the situation. Relena stopped laughing and sighed again.

"I wasn't mad at you…I was just remembering…home." She spoke softly. Hilde nodded her head in understanding. Relena shrugged her shoulders in an effort to throw off her melancholy mood. 

"I think if you gave Duo a chance you'd really find you have a lot in common with him." Relena mischievously told her friend.

"What do you mean? How could I possibly have anything in common with that over grown oaf?" Hilde raised a skeptical brow. Relena stood up and began to wash her face in what little luke-warm water was left in the basin. Hilde handed her a scrap of cloth to dry her face with impatience. Relena took her sweet time before she replied to the earlier question.

"For one thing, both of you are Jewish. Both of you are stationed out here. Both of you like coffee—"

"Okay, okay, but if you ask me, it sounded as if you were grasping as straws there." Hilde pointed out. Relena just smiled and grabbed her nurse's cap.

"I'm going on duty now. Try to get some sleep, okay?" Hilde nodded her head and waved at the departing girl.

_'So, lover boy's a Jew huh? Never would have thought it. Maybe I'll look him up next time I'm off duty.' _Hilde thought to herself right before she drifted off into a dreamless wonderland.

The next day Captain Winner and Nurse Peacecraft were making their way toward the mess tent for the noon meal. It mattered little that it was well after noon and that all the meal would consist of was "Crawford's Stew". The thought of the rancid stuff named after the infamous Major General made Relena's stomach clench. There was no wind today. The heat of the destert was like a living thing intent on suffocating all who opposed it's will by walking in the day light. But as hot as it was outside, inside the tents was like the seventh hell. The smell of decay inside the hospital tent was enough to turn even the most hardend soldiers stomach upside down. In all truth Relena didn't feel like eating at all, but Quatre had looked so worried that she had complied with his wishes.

"I don't see how you can even think of eating in this heat Quatre, really." Relena tried to sway her friend again. She pulled off her hat and used it's wide brim as a fan to move some of the stale air.

"We have to eat to keep our strength up. And anyway, you wouldn't want me to face a bowel of Crawford's Stew alone would you?" Quatre looked over at her with his most pleading of expressions. As children Relena had never been able to say no to this look. She was too soft hearted. Relena carefully avoided looking at Quatre's face.

"I'll not fall for that look this time Quatre. I'll go with you but I'm not going to eat." Relena informed him firmly. Quatre looked pained for a moment, but shrugged his shoulders and kept walking. Relena went back to fanning herself with a small smile of victory. 

  On the horizon a large cloud of dust was beginning to form. Relena blinked. For a moment she had thought it a hilutionation brought on by the heat. She paused in her walking and looked over at Quatre.

"Do you see that?" She pointed toward the low hanging brown cloud. Quatre squinted up at the cloud in puzzlement then revelation dawned on his face.

"There was supposed to be a Deligation coming from India to see Major General Crawford, but I never expected it to get here so soon."  Relena absently placed her hat back on her head. This was news to her and Relena couldn't decide if it was good news. She didn't seem to notice that they were still standing in the sun as she strained to see the first car in the Military Motorcade.

"Relena maybe we could watch from the shade of the mess tent?" Quatre asked. Relena shook her head as if to clear it of cob webs and smiled weakly at her campanion.

"I'm sorry. Yes, lets move out of the way." She aloud Quatre to take her arm and lead her off the roadway and toward the tent. Just as they were nearing the blessed semi-darkness the first of the 6 black cars pulled up. Relena stoped and watched in fasination as the first of the visitors steped out. Long legs covered in smartly pressed dark britches, tall, broad shoulders, dark unruly hair…a wave of dizziness hit Relena.

_'No, it's not possible. I went to the literal ends of the earth. There isn't anyway he could be here!'_

Quatre noticed that her face had lost all its color. He followed her horrified stair toward the military vehicles. For the life of him he couldn't figure out what was scaring her so, then his own light blue eyes clashed with a darker pair. Relena's grip on his arm almost became painful as the object of both their scrutiny started towards them.

"Quatre, I suddenly don't feel like even watching you eat that horrid mess. I'm going back to see if I might catch a small nap before I have to go back on duty." Relena hastily spit the words out as she turned. She couldn't face that man now. Not after a year of silents. Not after she had almost gotten over him. She could hear footsteps coming up behind her at a fast pace. Relena panicked and began to run as fast as she could in this heat. She had to get away from him before she broke down.

"Relena?" The deep questioning timbre of his voice was almost brought her to a stop. Almost. But the thought of looking into those mocking eyes of his drove her forward even faster.

_'I will not let you mock me ever again Heero Yuy. Never again.'_

A/N: Hello all! I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. This story will feature all the major pairings of GW eventually. Just be patient. Also, FYI The Hanging Gardens isn't really an upper-class restaurant in Cairo. And the _Peasemillion_ is a hospital ship…And I know neither Duo nor Hilde look Jewish…but for the sake of the story please bear with me.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything GW…well…I do have a couple of posters and model or two…but that's all…Oh and the song Life of my Own is by Three Doors Down and I don't claim anything from that either.

Ja ne,

Ghostie-chan


	3. Something More

**Chapter 3: Something More**   
  
  


I just opened up my eyes  
And let the world come climbing in  
It's all better now, things are gonna work somehow  
If I just sleep another hour  
Tried to reach you at your mom's  
Hey baby why you trying to keep away for so long  
I stopped feeling good, somehow I just knew I would  
I guess I'll sleep another hour  
Feels like I'm wasting my time  
Hanging on this same old line  
Got to get you off of my mind  
There's nothing left for me to find   
  
And all the more I want  
All the more I need  
All the while you want something more  
All the more I want  
All the more I need  
All the while you want something more   
  
Thought I found the words to say  
Just to get you feeling fine over heels my way  
But it don't matter how  
I lost the word and nerve and now  
There's nothing more for me to say  
Feels like I'm wasting my time  
Hanging on this same old line  
There's nothing left for me to find   
  
And all the more I want  
All the more I need  
All the while you want something more  
All the more I want  
All the more I need  
All the while you want something   
  
There's nothing left for me to say  
Wanting what I need this way  
And when I'm feeling low I know  
I need to stop   
  
And someday you will see  
All the more you want  
All the more you'll need me  
All the while I'll be on to something more  
And all the more you want  
All the more you'll need me  
All the while I want something more  
I want something more  
I want something more than this   


The noonday sun beat strongly upon the British camp. Watery, translucent heat waves could be seen lazily bouncing off the tents when ones eyes weren't focused on any particular thing. People moved about sluggishly because to move any faster seemed inhuman. A young Kurdish mother held her listless baby close while a year old child curled around her feet. Her face was grunt and badly sun backed. Her body was bent and exhausted. She didn't even have the tears to cry about the fact that her husband had been killed in the last raid. This young mother was the very embodiment of the camp. Everyone was exhausted and grunt. No one had the strength left to cry. Yet, there is always hope. She had her children, just like the soldiers here had their families and lovers waiting for them at home.

  Captain Quatre Winner contemplated this as he sat and stirred the thin, repugnant mess people were calling  "Crawford's Stew". No one quite knew what it was made of, but since supplies were so low no one asked. The Mess Hall was crowded but he still managed to feel lonely. The men around him were talking about fighting and killing. Some talked about what they had seen with haunted eyes and trembling fingers, but others couldn't keep feral grins off their faces or mirth out of their eyes. These men, the ones that enjoyed killing, scared him than any other thing could. Quatre had always tried to be as non-violent as he could. In fact one time as a child he had nursed a lizard back to health after Duo had injured it trying to throw the poor thing on Relena.

 Quatre was so caught up in his memories of childhood days that he didn't notice the woman come into the Mess Hall. She scanned the crowed hall for a place to sit and choke down her meager portion of stew. She spotted Quatre sitting not too far away and made a beeline for the young orderly.

"Excuse me. Please move. Thank you. No, I'm going to sit by Captain Winner." She pushed her way throw and finally placed her plate down in satisfaction. She noticed that he seemed deep in thought while whirling the wooden spoon around in his plate.

"Captain!" She called to him. Quatre looked up to see nurse Cathy Bloom sitting beside him. He smiled kindly at her and put his spoon down.

"Nurse Bloom! So, you've braved the heat to come and eat. Today the stew is especially thin, but to make up for that someone added a mystery meat that that fellow over there thinks might be cat. I was afraid to ask how he knew." Cathy laughed with him, because it was either laugh of cry. She took a small taste of her meal and tried not to cringe.

"It's not that bad really if you try and pretend your eating your favorite meal." She forced herself to eat another bite.

"So, what's yours?" Quatre pushed his plate towards the middle of the table were one of the near by soldiers made short work of the almost untouched stew.

"What's my what?" she looked up in confusion. Quatre noticed how some of her bright red hair had come out of the hasty bun she'd put it up in. He smiled slightly at the sight.

"Your favorite meal, it's got to be good if it helps you eat this stuff." He leaned his arms against the table and turned to look at her in the dim light. She pursed her lips in thought.

"Think my favorite meal would have to be roast beef. Every Sunday our family would gather around and that's what we'd eat. My little brother loved it." There was much sadness in her voice. Quatre was sure he saw a tear run down her cheek and plop into her stew.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." He told her quietly. Besides Relena, Cathy was the only other nurse here that he felt close too. Usually she was just so bright and happy. Quatre didn't was to bring up a subjects that she was uncomfortable with.

"No, it's just that it was so long ago. You'd think that would make it hurt less, but it doesn't. Mother died then father left us with an elder Aunt. She worked in the circus." Cathy smiled a little at the memories, " Those were good years. Trowa loved to help her feed the animals and she was training me do to all sorts of things, but I guess it wasn't meant to be. She died when I was 10. Trowa was only 7 and much too small to be any good so the Company left him in a London orphanage. I thought I'd go with the circus for just a little while until I could make some money for us then I'd come back and get him. But I didn't make money like I thought I would…" She looked away from his kind eyes. She didn't want his pity. Cathy gave a strained laugh and shook her head. Quatre reached over and patted her hand. He understood that some things were too painful for her to talk about.

"I'm sorry. It must be the heat making me carry on so! I must get back to my duties now. Those sick soldiers don't get better on their own!" Again her happy persona was back in place. Quatre didn't say anything about it, just agreed that he should be getting back soon too. They walked out into the afternoon sun together. Quatre didn't notice the smile that slid across his own face and if he had, he would never have admitted that the young nurse walking beside him had anything to do with it.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Duo Maxwell sat in the heat of the mess hall and watched his companion frown. He thought back to his first meeting with Heero Yuy two years earlier. Dou had been a brash 20-year-old ready to see the world, and through some pretty special contacts had entered British Intelligence. On his very first mission Heero had been his partner. To say that they clashed was an understatement.  Duo smiled at the memories of fights and arguments he'd had with this man, but when the chips were down they worked like a well-oiled machine together. Maybe if he had been partnered with Yuy in the Jerusalem mission he would never have gotten captured. But Heero had been on business in Cairo at the time so Duo had been sent in alone. 

_'Oh well, alls well that ends well.'_

"Hey Yuy, do you still have that stick half way up your ass?" he asked his brooding tablemate. Heero didn't even glare at him. Duo quirked one eyebrow up and shrugged. If the guy didn't even glare then what ever was eating him must be big.

"I guess you still do, huh? Well don't worry old buddy, someone will come along and either pull it out or shove it all the way in for ya'." He still didn't get so much as an eyebrow flicker. Duo sighed and sat back. He reached into his pant pocket and pulled out two cigarettes and a match. He offered one to the Major, then struck the match and lit both smokes. Heero took a long draw off his then sent the accesses smoke towards the ceiling.

"Maxwell if you ever talk about my ass again I'll kill you." He said it so softly that Duo almost missed it. He grinned at the fact that he had gotten a response. Duo happily puffed on his cigarette waiting for Heero to explain the things he could.__

"I came to see if the reports you were sending in were as bad as you made them out to be. And if anything I find them to be worse. I have to convince him to give up this foolhardiness. He will never beat the Turks back form this position. In fact he should have already retreated back to Abadan!" He took another long draw off his cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs a bit before exhaling. He turned angry eyes toward his partner and played with the thought of killing him now…or later.

"What I didn't barging for, Dou, was Relena Peacecraft being here." Heero's words were spoken in a monotone that told Duo just how angry he was. Heero took the cigarette out of his mouth and crushed it into the wooden table. "I told her to stay with her brother on the ship were he could protect her while I was gone. And knowing she would never do what I told her to, I asked YOU to make sure she stayed put. I" Heero leaned menacing over the table toward Duo, "**_Distinctly_** remember telling you to use **_ANY_** means. Yet I pull up here and who do I see walking, pretty as you please across the sand, like this is a bloody tea party?! Relena Peacecraft!"  Heero's glare was deadly enough to turn even the most hardened soldiers to jelly, but Duo was immunized to its power.

"I tried doing what you asked me to do, Yuy, but unfortunately, I can only be one place at a time. All I could do before I was sent to see what was going on here was…well…nothing. I wasn't even given the time to **_SEE_** my family much less keep one of them in Cairo. But I suppose you don't remember giving me my mission papers the day after I got back from the Jerusalam mission?" Duo was getting angry with his partner now. "Yuy, you might not consider yourself human, but I damn well am. And another thing, buddy, if you had just contacted her anytime during the last 12 months she might not be here." Duo knew he was pushing it a little with that comment, but he was tired of the way his partner kept blaming him for the problems in his personal life.

"Are you blaming me for her stupidity?" Heero sat back a little more calmly than he had stood up. 

"All I'm say is you should consider her motives before you begin laying blame." Duo sighed and rubbed his tired eyes. "Quatre's also here with her." Heero's shoulders tensed at the mention of Quatre's name. Duo had noticed this same reaction in Quatre. He thought about asking what this shared dislike was all about, but desided he was just too tired.

"Look, I just don't won't to talk about this with you anymore. What I do need is to know is what are you planning to do about Crawford?"

"There's precious little I can do. I was sent to collect you then to go in behind the enemy lines for some recon. Other then sending a report to our superior my hands are tied." Duo swore under his breath. If the great Heero Yuy, Master of Miracles, said there was nothing he could do then the situation had to be dire.

"What can we do, Heero?"

"Only what we can."

~*~*~*~*~*~

The medical tent was dimly lit as Nurse Relena moved around the room checking the bandages of the wounded. Most of them were in surprisingly good spirits for men that were bed bound in a tiny ill-smelling room. That should have made her happy, but it didn't. Not when she realized that the reason for their good spirit was because if they were sick, they didn't have to go out and face certain death on the front lines. One solider who had died last week had said it best in his last hours.

"Fighting because it's right and honorable is one thing, but fighting because someone thinks you're a bloody chess piece is another thing entirely. There's no honor in that kinda fighting." 

Relena had held his hand as he died.

'I understand what he was saying now, but I'm so helpless. All I can do is comfort the dying…and those still living...' 

One of the soldiers reached out and caught her dress as she walked by. Relena turned around to see a young Asian man sitting up in bed. She smiled politely and moved closer to him.

"What can I get for you?" She reached out to take his hand, but he jerked it away as if her touch was poison.

"I want something to drink woman." Relena swallowed back the retort that tried to claw it's way out of her throat at his arrogant tone.

"I'll bring water to everyone when I finish checking wounds." She informed him before moving off to the next bed. Again she felt a tug on her skirt, though in truth it was more like a jerk. She just turned her head this time.

"Do you need something more?"

"Yes, I want my water! Right. Now." The glare he was sending her almost had the same amount of pure animosity that Heero's had. But not quite.

"I told you, I'll bring it to you in a minute. Now, kindly release my skirt, please." She sent a glare of her own toward the hand still fisted in her dress. The soldier wasn't backing down, and neither was Relena. The other patients were starting to make bets on whether Nurse Peacecraft would kill the man outright or in his sleep later when Sally walked in. She crossed her arms and cleared her throat to get the glaring nurse's and patient's attention.

"Well, I see you've met Chang Wufei, Relena." She nodded to the prone man with some amusement. Relena just narrowed her eyes more.

"Yes, Doctor, I believe I have, but I can't say I'm overjoyed." Wufei had reluctantly let go of Relena's clothes when Sally walked up and now Relena took the opportunity to move on with her rounds. She was contemplating how long she could put off bringing him water before he made a scene.

Sally sat down on the side of her sullen patients bed and sighed.

"What did you do to her, Wufei?" He just glared at her for a long moment. Sally finally desided that he wasn't going to talk so she stood up.

"I wanted water." Came his clipped reply. Sally sat back down. 

" I suppose you didn't ask nicely or say please, hmm? Wufei one day your rudeness will get you into trouble." She remarked. As long as she had known this young man his attitude had made him more enemies than friends. Sally stood up and got him some water then sat back down and told him as much. He drank down the water thirstily then shoved the tin cup back into her hands.

"You've only known me 6 months, woman, you have no clue about my friends and enemies. Now I want to go to sleep. And tell that menace to stay away from me." He pointed at Relena, who was chatting with a soldier who had lost his eyes to shrapnel a few beds down. Sally didn't let his rudeness faze her as she stood. She reached for her pocket watch and sighed. Her small break was over now and it was time to get back to sewing soldiers back together.

~*~*~*~

Hours later Relena walked across the swirling sand in darkness. She stumbled over some un-seen obstacle and sighed. 

_'Nobody told me when I wanted to be a nurse that I'd have to watch people die…like this.'_ Today three of her patients had passed on; the bulge in her pocket was all the proof their families would need. Each letter contained a set of dog tags. 

 As she neared her tent she noticed someone sitting beside it. The full moon broke threw the clouds and provided her with enough light to see who it was that waited.

"Duo, is every thing okay?" Duo hastily got up from the sand and brushed off his pants. His movements told Relena that he had been sleeping before she walked up. She frowned in concern as he gave her a tired smile.

"Nothings wrong Princess, just thought I'd take a little nap while I waited for ya' to come home." Duo shifted from one foot to the other nervously. He hadn't spoken to his old friend since yesterday when they had fought. Duo pulled out a smoke and a match to give his hands something to do. Relena's frown turned from worry to irritation at the sight of the cigarette.

"Duo Maxwell, I can not believe the bad habits you've picked up in the last two years!" She patted her foot in the sand waiting for him to account for himself. Duo actually blushed and reluctantly snuffed his precious cigarette out on the ground. Relena smiled in triumph as the little red light went out.

"Now that we've taken care of that, was there a special reason you came to see me?" She raised an eyebrow. As much as she was overjoyed as seeing him again after two years she was tired and only had three hours to sleep before her shift went back in.

"Oh…ummm…yeah. I was told to give you…this." He fumbled around in the numerous pockets of his uniform before pulling out a white piece of paper in victory. He held it out to her with a grin then gave her a one armed hug around her shoulders.

"I've got to get back to my post now. I'll try to visit you tomorrow, okay?" Relena nodded up at him and shuffled exhaustedly inside her tent. She fell across her cot and felt her eyes drift shut.

_'I wonder what that was all about. Duo didn't even tell my who sent him.'  _Her curiosity got the better of her as she lay there trying to turn off her now racing thoughts. Relena groaned and sat up. The note had crinkled slightly when she had flopped on the bed. She smoothed it out and held it out to catch the small amount of light coming in at the flap.

_Dear Lady Peacecraft,_

_I was very surprised to find you here on the front lines when I arrived. We really need to discuss this but I don't have much time. You are to come to the Mess Hall an hour after sunset tomorrow. I checked with Dr. Po so I know your not on shift then._

Relena didn't even blink as she ripped the paper into tiny pieces. Even though it wasn't signed she knew who had sent it.

_'He thinks he can just order me around? Of all the nerve!'_ She lay back down on her cot and stared at the ceiling. Tonight the spots didn't resemble animals, more like dark tear stains.

'He always thought that he could order me around. I remember when he told me he was leaving…' 

_~FLASHBACK~_

_The sound of the brass orchestra sounded softly in the background as Heero lead her outside. Relena's cheeks were flushed with happiness as she clung to his arm. He found a secluded spot in the garden and helped her sit down. She expected him to sit beside her on the bench but he remained standing._

_"I'm been called to France." Heero didn't look at her when he said it._

_"What?" The color drained from her face at his words. "But…you said…Heero what happened?" She tried to keep the tears at bay. And here she thought he was going to ask her to marry him._

_"They need someone who's been there before and has contacts. And I never said I was going to leave my work for you Relena. You just assumed that one on your own." He pointed out. Relena didn't see the pain flash in his eyes as he said this._

_"I want you to stay with your brother, Relena. Don't leave Cairo unless he goes with you. I don't want any of my enemies coming after you." Relena felt her spine stiffen. She stood to her full 5 foot 3 inches and prepared to set the Major straight._

"How dare you tell me were to stay while you go gallivanting around the world? I don't care---" His mouth crushed down on hers in a torrent of emotion. Relena was taken wholly by surprise when she felt his demanding lips possess hers. His arms wrapped tightly around her waist and her resistants slowly melted away. After what seemed like forever they both had to come up for breath.

_"Heero—" She whispered his name as she gasped for breath. Relena had to clutch the front of his shirt to hold herself up._

_"Promise me?" He spoke softly into her ear, his own chest heaving from lack of breath. He nibbled on the edge of her ear. Relena moaned quietly. She leaned her neck back, instinctly offering it up to his warm mouth._

_"…Okay…" She agreed without much thought. Heero slowly pulled away from her. He looked into her glazed over eyes and placed one more kiss upon her red swollen lips. Then he was gone. _

_~END FLASHBACK~_

Later when Relena had gotten her wits back she had been angry, then the tears had come. Two months later when she still hadn't heard anything from Heero she signed up to go to the front lines. Now he was back and wanted to meet her.

_'I can't see him now. I'm too venerable. All he'd have to go is kiss me…' _Relena rolled over on to her side and let the tears fall.

~*~*~*~*~

A.N

Greetings all!!! I finally convinced my muse to come out from under my bed and to bring this chapter with him. And that took a lot of doing considering that little Rice Ball (my muse) is allergic to chocolate. I had to lure him out with a special mixture of strawberry and banana jams. But that's neither here nor there…I was asked some questions about this fic that I'd like to answer!!!

Some one asked me if I did my own research. Well to answer that I've done some, but mostly everything I know comes from my handy-dandy little book  _'Lions of the Desert'_ and those things I learned in school. (Which wasn't much.) I am running to the end of my knowledge though so I'm going to have to hit the books soon.

Also, some one commented on the bombing of the hospital. Well…I don't know about honor…that scene came from the above book…I just wrote it from Relena's view…*blush* Anyway…ummm…so your probably right…lets just say that the enemy forgot about honor for a minute.

Another thing was about Dup being captured. I know the real unrest comes later, but as you can see from this chapter he was spying!! *sings Secret Agent Man*

Ummmmm…I think that's all…I hope you all liked this chapter…and I sincerely thank all of you who reviewed. Please be patient with me…I've never written something were I couldn't just make up the facts as I went along. Feel free to tell me if I get something blatantly wrong.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything I'm using here in this story and I don't own the song Something More by Train. Some of the idea's are even stolen *evil grin* but the good news is

(1) No one was hurt in the production of this chapter.

(2) I didn't make any money off of this.

(3) I can't sing!! (Not that that maters, eh?)

So you can all rest in peace tonight knowing that I don't own anything!! End Disclaimer:

Smoochies!!

Hitomi Lei A.K.A The Purple Ghost

P.S. Are the chapters too long? Because I see a lot of authors apologizing for the length of their chapters and I was just wondering…Shorter or longer? What do you all prefer?


	4. From my Heart to my Head

**From My Head To My Heart**

Once again I just can't get it straight  
Wondering if wandering is my fate  
But don't lose hope in me quite yet  
'cause help must be on the way, any day  
  
From my head to my heart  
can't seem to find a way they're so far apart  
It's not you, it's not your fault  
You've got everything I could ever want  
And you've always understood my intentions are good  
and we've been so close from the start  
but the furthest distance I've ever known is  
From my head to my heart  
  
I feel the distance standing here next to you  
I don't want to keep you waiting, but I've been waiting too  
Some day if I get there and you still want me too  
we can see it through  
  
From my head to my heart  
can't seem to find a way they're so far apart  
it's not you, you've got everything I could ever want 

The sun was settling slowly into its nightly grave behind the lands rime. Deep, magnificent purples, pinks, and oranges shrouded the western sky like the veils of many harem women. The heat was less oppressive   at this time of the day, when all the vibrant colors started to bleed out toward the wound in the skies horizon.

  Major Heero Yuy stood in the shade of a tent onning waiting for his appointment with Major General Crawford. He watched with mild curiosity as a few of the common enlisted men wander past him. All their expressions showed various degrees of misery. Their uniforms were frayed at the hem and sleeve, drawn tight across the shoulders. The common soldier had many problems being in the lower ranks of the British arm forces, one of them being his uniform. It was made to fit a wide range of body types, which meant that the heavy woolen uniform never fit any one right.

   Heero, as an officer, fared much better since he could spend his own money to have his uniforms made. He liked for them to be ordinary looking so he could blend in easily but he insisted that they be made of the best materials instead of the thick wool that aloud no air to breath through to his skin. He also preferred soft leather boots instead of the wrap around woolen puttees regular soldier uniforms sported. There were desided advantages to being an officer. 

   Footsteps in the sand behind him alerted Heero that someone was coming out of the tent. He turned to greet the person with a carefully blank face. Before him stood an aide-de-camp with the dourest expression he had ever seen.

"The General will see you now Major." He said in a snide voice. Heero ignored him entirely and reached for his cap and sat it smartly over his unruly brown hair.

'Ah, he must have read my report. Maybe he has a wire from General Paxton to pull back to Abadan.'

Heero walked into the room to see Crawford with his map out. He was murmuring to himself and didn't notice Heero at first. The Major stood silently for a moment and observed his movements.

"Plotting to carve up the Turks at Baghdad?" Heero asked the man before him. 

  Crawford had served in British held India for many years before Paxton had asked him to take over for the ailing lieutenant general. Heero was concerned that Crawford might live up to his reputation of authorizing too many risks with the Sixth Division.

  From what Heero had heard through Major General Crawford's personal friends and enemies, he was out to make a name for the Sixth Division. In Heero's judgment, the general's determination, though honorable, bordered on the recklessness obsession of a mad chess master sacrificing rook and pawn for a brief victory. Perhaps that was the real reason he'd decided to stay longer than the planed night to speak with Relena. She was serving in the worst possible field hospital—the one place where there would be more danger than any other war front, except for the trenches in France or Antwerp! That she was here frustrated him but Heero couldn't deny a grudging respect for her was forming in his heart that he couldn't explain.

   Heero had come to the camp with a simple purpose: Bring information from the intelligence office in Cairo on the recent buildup of Turkish troops in the region. He was to inform Crawford of the foolishness of a new thrust to capture Baghdad, then grab Duo out of whatever trouble he had managed to get himself into and leave the next day. This new situation with Relena complicated that once a clean-cut mission. Now he had to worry about whether Crawford would pay heed to his words or not. Heero knew that the general wanted this victory badly enough to drool over it. What would that mean for Relena?

"Speak your mind Yuy then get out of my tent." The General never looked up from his battle map of Baghdad. Heero didn't give any indication that the lack of attention bothered him. He just came farther into the canvas tent and watched the general work.

"Have your read my report, General?" He asked in a careful monotone. He watched as the general moved some of the oddly shaped wooden blocks over toward a dried out riverbed.

"Yes, and it's just what I expected from those nervous hens at Cairo Intelligence." Crawford tossed his strategy pieces down onto the map and faced Heero with he full attention. Heero for his part showed none of his inner anger at the general's cavalier attitude. He would have like to tell the arrogant Crawford that those involved in gathering intelligence faced death and much worse more often than the general ever had.

"I've never had the privilege to meet any of these nervous hens you speak so highly of, General. I only know the men doing their jobs at considerable risk from German Lugers and Turkish scimitars."

Crawford waved an unconcerned hand. "Nothing personal, old boy! I've heard good things about you through the military grape vine, not to mention the war office in London, but the conclusions in this report—" he slammed his hands down on the papers haphazardly scattered around his map—"Are a bunch of bloody rot!" He sent the report flying out into the room with a sweep of his hand. Heero's gaze flickered to the papers as the fluttered to the floor. He'd written the whole thing himself from firsthand knowledge. There wasn't a bloody word in it that could be classified as "rot"

  A tense silence filled the room so thickly that lesser men might have felt like they were drowning in it. The General carefully cleared his throat when he saw that the younger man would say nothing and continued to speak.

"With all due respect to your agency, Major, I must reject this information as groundless. My decision to move toward Baghdad must, and **_will_**, proceed."

"Do you reject it, sir, because you think my findings are unfound, or is the sight of your men dying by the hundreds appealing to you?"

"No, I believe that the Turkish 37th have gotten reinforcements. You are to be commended for bringing me information my spies had three weeks ago. I suggest that Cairo Intelligence keep it's nose out of my business. If they need something to do so badly they can focus on trying to keep the Turks and the Germans out of the Suez Canal.

"General Nur-ud-Din has thirty-five thousand rested troops from Constantinople. That's listed in my report, but what's not mentioned is what I've seen with my own eyes since arriving today. Your hospital is full of soldiers that are sick with things like dysentery, malaria, and exhaustion. They can't make the march on a newly refortified Baghdad!" Heero tired to keep his voice quiet and calm but he was finding that to be a hard thing in the face of the General's blind confidence.

"And you'll have to admit that you have logistical problems with supplies and water, sir. That's also in my report—"

"I've read the bloody report, Major. And I think you are underestimating the fighting power of the 6th. My men can defeat them here---and here." Taking a thin pointer from the cluttered table behind him he pointed out two regions on his map between the camp and Baghdad: Amara and Kut-al-Amara.

"Sir, that is an unwise move—" The general made a sharp gesture with his hand to cut Heero off. 

"I don't tell you how to spy on the Germans, boy, and I won't stand and let you tell me how to run my army. This meeting is over." He roared out. Heero soon found himself out side the tent with that snide aid-de-camp at his elbow. He was so angry that his very blood felt like it would turn to steam and puff out his ears any minute. It took him a moment to realize he hadn't gotten the opportunity to speak to Crawford about sending Relena home.

It was sunset again. Relena trudged out of the Medical tent with yet another handful of dog tags to send off to worried and waiting family. She lethargically swatted at a mosquito that buzzed around her face trying to find a clear place to get dinner. Her eyes drifted on their on accord toward the mess hall were Heero waited for her. She hesitated for a moment before continuing towards the small corner of tent she called her own.

'If he wanted to talk to me so badly he could have contacted me before now. He's had a whole year plus some after all. And I know what he's going to try to do…He'll want me to leave. I just can't face that right now. And I can't leave with out Quatre, Hilde, and Cathy.

_Can't or won't?' _ A small voice asked in her head__

_'I will not leave without them; it's just not honorable to leave your comrades right in the middle of their hour of need. So yes, Can't and won't.'_ That little internal argument over, Relena stumbled over to her small chest at the foot of her cot and pulled out writing supplies. Then she sat to her work as the messenger of the God of Death.

The mess hall was strangely quiet that evening. Only a few soldiers sat around half a dozen tables swapping stories from their childhoods. Heero sat in the farthest corner of the tent were he had a good view of the entrance. He pulled out his pocket watch and snapped it open with a flick of his wrist. Relena was two hours late. Heero let a small sigh escape his lips as he contemplated the gold design of the watch face. **_She_** had gotten it for him on one of their many outing to the market place. After leaving Relena that infamous night for the last time, Heero had tried to erase all sign of her out of his life, but he couldn't bear to part with the watch. He told himself that he's reluctance had nothing to do with the picture of herself she had so painstakingly pressed onto the inside of the cover, and everything to do with the fact that throwing away a perfectly good watch was out of his character. The fact that he had never even tried to remove the picture and protected the watch as one would protect a child was not to be mentioned.

  For a moment Heero let his eyes linger on her smiling mouth. The mouth he had so loved to trace with his own. A surge of strange feelings bubbled up in his chest but he squelched them down.

'I do not love her.'

Heero snapped the watch shut, but gently, and placed it back in its hiding spot. He reached for the weak tea some young soldier had brought him with a grimace. It was the worst tea he had ever put to his lips, bar none. Not even Duo's came close to it and Duo's tea had almost killed a man once. The same soldier that had made him the tea came by again to see if he wanted anything else. Heero leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtfully up at the much younger man.

"You know, my old uncle used to make the best tea in all of London. He used to say that even the dumbest of God's creatures could brew a pot of tea, and I always believed him until now." The soldier shifted from one foot to another nervously when Heero poured the pale orange liquid out onto the sad.

"You, soldier, have single handedly proven my old uncle wrong. This is the most horrible poison I'm ever let slip between my lips. Did you even bring the water to a boil?" His glare was enough to send the soldier backing up a feel paces.

"Yes, Major s-sir! I let the water get hot, I did!"

"Well, did you let the leaves seep for any length of time, private?" Heero raised an eyebrow and continued to watch the soldier back up.

"Well, S-sir…I-I" The young private took a deep breath to calm himself before continuing, "I don't believe I let them seep long enough Major, nor did I-I let the water get hot enough. I'll…make you some more if you're still of a mind for tea." Heero nodded up at him and just handed his tin cup over. He felt a touch of pleasure when the soldier scurried off to fulfill his instructions.

Duo, who had entered the tent just in time to watch what had just taken place, pouted a little when he got to Heero's table.

"I thought I made the worst tea you've ever tasted, buddy." He pulled on his best hurt expression and looked over at his partner. Heero shrugged.

"It was much worse that yours ever has been." Duo laughed out loud to hear Heero say that. Of course he had heard the story of Heero's uncle's tea many times in the last two years. They both fell quiet for a moment. Heero returned to scowling at the door and Duo was just content to listen to the harmonica a soldier had started to play a few tables over. The Tommie was playing an old gospel hymn that Duo remembered from his childhood in India. Somehow, even though Duo didn't believe in the Savior the song talked about, it soothed his nerves. He was listening so intently to the song that he almost missed the words he's been waiting on.

"She didn't come." Heero stared down into the murky depths his tea. Duo hadn't even noticed when the young soldier had brought it back.

"I know." He told his friend quietly.

"I have to talk to her before we leave. I can't put off leaving another day, and God help me, I must speak with her." His hand gripped the cup so hard that some of the hot liquid spilt out and covered his hand. He dropped the cup with a hiss and a curse. Duo looked sadly over at his older partner.

"I told you she'd never come. Relena's too stubborn for that. If I've learned anything in the 15 years I've known her it's that you've got to be sneaky." Heero just glared at him from under his unruly mop of brown bangs as he tried to clean the tea off his hand with a handkerchief.

"If you don't have anything intelligent to input Maxwell I suggest you keep your mouth shut." Duo smirked confidently over that the major.

"Oh, I have a plan, Yuy. Don't you worry, this one will work better than anything you could have come up with…"

Relena was on her fifth letter when Catherine tiredly walked into the tent. She collapsed into her cot and rolled over to look at Relena. She could see the exhausted slump in the other girl's shoulders and hated herself for what she was about to do.

"Relena, there's a soldier at the hospital asking for an off duty nurse to go out to the officers tents close to the front lines. It seems one of the officers has contacted malaria and is too sick to come in. Dr. Po wants you to go." Relena's pen stopped moving for a minute and if possible her shoulders dropped even more. She sighed and looked over at her fellow nurse.

"Would you finish writing these for me? I only have two left." She pointed to the papers and dog tags scattered over her bed. Cathy nodded her consent and pulled herself up to a sitting position on her cot. Relena went to her trunk and started to rummage around for the medical bag that she kept in there. The bag had been a gift from her brother when she became a nurse. 

"Do you know where he's waiting at?" She asked the red headed nurse who was now looking over the dog tags on her bed. Cathy looked up sheepishly and cringed slightly to her friend.

"No, I didn't wait around long enough to hear that, dear. Sorry." Relena just smiled crookedly and reached up to push any hairpins that had worked lose from a long day of work back into her makeshift bun.

"Don't worry with it Cathy, I have to go to the hospital for a prescription of quinine anyway. I suppose I won't be getting any sleep tonight." She looked longingly at the little sagging cot in the corner then straightened up her spine with determination.

"Well, I must be off." Relena tried to sound as cheerful as she could about missing sleep and having to trudge about in the desert in the middle of the night. Catherine watched her leave with a touch of concern. Both she and Hilde had noticed that Relena hadn't been sleeping lately. Quatre had also mentioned that she wasn't eating much either. Cathy hoped that Relena wasn't getting sick with something deadly like malaria or some other thing. Out here in the heat disease killed just as sure as enemy bullets.

"I'll have to speak with her about this when she gets back tonight." Cathy told the canvas ceiling, but she couldn't shake the ominous feeling of foreboding that settled in the pit of her stomach like a coiled viper.

The moon shone brightly off the sand, surrounding Relena in an otherworldly glow as she tried to keep up with the older soldier who had been sent to bring her to the sick officer aid. He didn't seem to notice how she had begun to lag behind. Her legs felt like lead and she was sure her small boots were filled with more than a ton of sand.

"How much further will it be, sir?" she asked to bulldog faced Sergeant. He just pointed somewhere up ahead of them and spat tobacco juice from out onto the desert floor. Relena sighed and continued to struggle through the sand. 

'I wonder if Heero is still waiting for me…No he probably only waited 10 minutes if he even came at all. If I didn't love that man so much I'd….Wait, I don't love him. I refuse to love him after he left me like that.'

Up ahead she caught sight of a flickering light that she took to be the officers' fire. Relief filled her and she cracked a small smile. The walk hadn't been that bad, she might have even enjoyed it had she not been taken from her much needed rest.

"Which tent is it, sir?" He only grunted and pointed to a canvas structure that was sat a little away from the others. Relena asked the soldier another question, this time hoping for more than a grunt as an answer.

"You never told me his name, soldier." She stepped toward the tent but kept her face turned toward the soldier for his answer.

"My name is Major Heero Yuy." The voice spoke from behind Relena so suddenly that she gave a little yelp. Her breath caught in her lungs. Lack of sleep, coupled with sudden shock sent her body into over load and black spots began to dance across her vision.

"He-Heero?" The Major had to move quickly to catch the girl as she slumped towards the ground. He felt panic spiral up in his chest at how light she felt in his arms. Relena had never been heavy to lift, but now she felt like less than a feather. He quickly carried her inside a placed her on his cot.

"You know, I didn't go through all this just for you to faint on me Relena. Come on, baby wake up!" Heero lightly slapped her cheeks and drew back in surprise at how hot to the touch she felt. The situation was much worse than he had originally thought it was, and it kept getting worse. For the first time he took note of her medicine bag and reached for it. Surely she had to have smelling salts at lest. 

  It didn't take him long to find the small vial of putrid salts and he put them to good use by waving them under her nose. Relena jerked her head away from the vial and coughed roughly. Heero felt instant relief flow through him as she sat up weakly. Relena took a moment to remember where she was before fixing a glare on the now smugly smiling major.

"You cad! Your not even sick." She ground out between clenched teeth. Undaunted Heero returned her glare for glare.

"Knowing your noble spirit, I knew you could never resist a dying soldier in need. Of course if you had met me at sunset like I oh so politely asked you to I wouldn't have had to resort to such imaginative ways to get you here. Now relax, you look like a prisoner of war in need of kindness." Relena didn't sit back, instead she looked toward the exit of the tent with determination to get out with what little dignity she had left.

"I shall not waste another moment of my time here Major. I have to get back to the hospital, unlike some, I don't have time to sit and chat over tea." She told him in her best rendition of royalty she could muster. She didn't notice the dangerous look flash in the eyes of the man standing between her and the freedom she so longer for.

"You won't be going any where tonight, Nurse Peacecraft."

AN: I regret to inform all of you man-eating lawyers out there that I don't own Gundam Wing. I do own some posters and a model or two. Oh and yesterday I bought my own chunk of gundaniam off of e-bay!! 

 The song used up top came for Evan and Jaron so I'm not claiming that either.

Rice Ball and I would like to thank the many people who review last chapter!! You are all sooooooo wonderful! We love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, special thanks are to be given to War Dove who helped me out with a crisis I thought I'd never have to face. Thanks Dove, you're the bestest!!!

Ummm….Also thanks for all the replies on chapter length! I though long chapters = Author not being shot but rice ball wasn't sure.

Rice Ball: Why do you blame me for **EVERY** thing? I'm going to hide under the bed!! You'll never get me out alive!!! *scurries under the bed*

Hitomi: I guess I have to go get him out…*sigh* Until next time!!! *waves* Bye Bye!!


	5. So I Need You

So I Need You

If you could step into my head, tell  
Me would you still know me  
If you woke up in my bed, tell me  
Then would you hold me  
Or would you simply let it lie,  
Leaving me to wonder why  
I can't get you out of this head  
I call mine  
And I will say

Oh no I can't let you go,  
My little girl  
Because you're holding up my  
World, so I need you  
Your imitation of my walk and the  
Perfect way you talk  
It's just a couple of the million  
Things that I love about you

So I need you  
So I need you  
So I need you  
So I need you

And if I jumped off the Brooklyn  
Bridge, tell me would you  
Still follow me  
And if I made you mad today, tell  
Me would you love me  
Tomorrow? Please  
Or would you say that you don't  
Care, and then leave me  
Standing here  
Like the fool who is drowning in  
Despair and screamin'

Oh no I can't let you go,  
My little girl  
Because you're holding up my  
World, so I need you  
Your imitation of my walk and the  
Perfect way you talk  
It's just a couple of the million  
Things that I love about you

So I need you  
So I need you  
So I need you  
So I need you

I'm on my own  
I'm on my own  
I'm on my own

Oh no I can't let you go, my  
little girl  
Because you're holding up my  
World, so I need you  
Your imitation of my walk  
and the perfect way you talk  
It's just a couple of the  
Million things that I love   
About you

So I need you  
So I need you  
So I need you  
So I need you

@--;---

The moon reached its zenith in the night sky and the sand below was transformed into a sea of sparkling jewels. The stars looked down upon the jeweled sea from their beds in the black velvet sky with contempt for the lowly grains that tried to out-shine them, mighty celestial beings.  But the sand didn't care, and continued to shine happily as the wind danced over its surface. This was an age-old power struggle that would continue until the end of time. Much like the one happening in the Major's tent.

 "You won't be going any where tonight, Nurse Peacecraft."

   Silence. For a moment even the sound of tiny grains of sand hitting the sides of the canvas structure was too loud. With each little popping sound Relena felt her anger rise higher and higher. Then suddenly the sound of flesh against flesh filled desert night.  Heero let the momentum of her slap carry his head back in his shock. He could barely bring himself to believe that not only had she hit him, but that the blow had actually stung.

"You are a good deal stronger then you first appear Nurse Peacecraft. But I would never have taken you for one of those women that resort to violence when angered. I was under the impression that you were a pacific." He was mocking her, and Relena knew it. His smirk was enough to make her palm itch. Relena resisted the urge to slap him again; instead she focused on calming down. After all, violence never solved anything.

"Major, I have patients that I need to take care off. While I've enjoyed playing your little games, I really am going to leave now before I waist anymore precious sleep." She brushed past him and headed for the exit. Relena was surprise when he let her pass, knowing that it could never be that simple—then she felt his hand catch her wrist. Heero spun her around and pushed her into the chair he had been sitting in before she arrived.

"I told you, you're not going back to the hospital. I'm getting you out of this living hellhole." He told her calmly. Heero found it fascinating, really, how she thought he would let her disobey him without a fuss.

"I'm not going to leave all my friends in their greatest hour of need! You can't do this to me." Her voice was desperate, pleading, and in truth it almost broke his heart. 

"I don't care about them. My main priority is getting you out of here alive." He told her in a monotone. He couldn't stand the look of betrayal that reflected in the stormy blue of her gaze. Heero had to turn his back on her or he would have given in. He was doing what was best for her, and someday she'd realize that, just as she would realize that leaving her that night so long ago had been an act of mercy on his part.

"Y-You're just a uniform, Heero Yuy. You **have** no heart or soul!! You don't **care** about anything or anyone but your **stupid** mission. You don't care that people will **die** if I'm not here! How could I have ever loved you?" She spat out as if invoking a curse. Her words cut him more deeply than he would ever let her know. Heero deliberately turned and moved closer to her sitting form. So close that she could feel his warm, moist breath fanning her now scarlet face. One of his hands came up to stroke lightly down her cheek. The feel of the rough pad of his thumb against her lips sent a shiver up Relena's spine. He noticed her reaction but paid it no heed. His eyes burned like blue fire into hers; melting away any coherent protest she might have tried to form.

"So I don't have a heart, huh? Well one day you'll thank me for missing such a useless organ Miss Peacecraft." He whispered against the shell of her ear. Relena was trying to comprehend what he was saying to her, but the room was suddenly too warm to think. She felt as if part of her brain had shut down at the feel of his touch. 

   Then she felt his slightly chapped lips claim hers in a none-too-gentle kiss. She tried to ignore their persistent demands for response, but her traitorous body remembered this game and over-rode what little common sense she still had. As Heero deepened the kiss, his hand slid under her fallen hair to find the pressure point in the back of her neck. A quick tap had her slumping forward into his chest. He pulled away and did his best to steady the unconscious nurse in the chair.

"I hope you can forgive me for this one day, Relena."

@--;----

"We'll be leaving soon."

Heero sat across from Duo for the second time that day. He closed his eyes and savored to feeling of the nicotine he had just inhaled. He tried, without much success, to relax the taunt muscles in the back of his neck. Duo looked at him with a shocked expression; his mouth hanging low at his partner's words. Heero wondered absently if maybe the Gods would smile down on him and have Duo's jaw freeze that way. Then he'd never have to worry about being second guessed by the idiot again.

"So you're taking her against her will? The plain was only for you to **talk** to her not knock her unconscious and **kidnap** her." The Gods definitely were not hearing his prayers tonight.

"….."

"Damn Heero, do you even know where you're taking Relena? When you'll get back? How you're going to keep her from killing you with her bare hands when she wakes up and finds out you've kidnapped her?"

" It won't be the first time I've kidnapped her," He replied and blew out a ring of smoke. He ignored Duo's raised eyebrow. "I'm taking her to Une. She can be trusted to keep Relena safe. I'll be back in under a week."

"What about the others, you know the order to move out will be given any day." Duo inquired. He understood how short staffed the hospitals were here at the front. The loss of just one pair of hands would be a crushing blow. But even knowing what her absents might cause, he couldn't help but feel a sense of relief that his surrogate sister would be safe now.

"I don't care about the others, that's for bleeding hearts like you and Nurse Peacecraft here to worry about." With an impatient movement Heero snuffed out the red glowing embers of his cigarette in the sand at their feet.

"**Heero…"** Duo felt angered by his friend's cold attitude.

"Dou, I'm not in the mood. Your going to have to figure this one out on your own. I'll be back in seven days. If your still here I'll help you get the rest of them out. I'm sure by then the orders to evaluate will have come from Paxton." Heero stood and walked back toward his tent were his unconscious cargo waited.

"Has anyone ever told you that you don't have a heart, buddy?" Duo sat back and watched the older man head away.

**"…." **Heero entered the tent without responding to Duo's jab.

"Well, God speed. And take care of my sister." Duo picked himself up off the ground and headed back toward camp.

'Now, how do I explain to Dr. Po that one of her best nurses has gone MIA without getting a scalpel embedded in my forehead? Maybe I could tell that other nurse…what was her name…Heidi…Hilda…Hilde that's what it was Hilde. Maybe I could ask her to help me tell Po.' Then the memory of the book connecting rather painfully with his head the last time he had seen her, resurrected in his mind.

'On second thought, I'll just talk to Quatre first.'

@--;---

   It was near sunrise. Quatre looked done at the soldier that he and Dr. Po had just finished working on. The poor Tommy had taken a massive hit from a grenade being thrown into the trench. They'd had to take his right arm and leg. Dr. Po merely washed the blood off her hands and left the rest of the clean up to the nurse and himself. She had done too many of this kind of operations to feel anything but numbness towards the patient.

   Quatre wondered if the young man would even live throw the night; his fever was rising, and in this heat infection was a matter of course. At this moment he was ready to give up his whole carrier in the medical profession if it meant he'd never see another person die. 

'I don't know how much of this I can passively take. I'm tired to caring, but I can't just turn off my emotions like Sally seems to do.'

He turned tired eyes toward the next patient on his list that needed visiting. His vision blurred and he stumbled into a passing nurse.

"Oh, I-I'm sorry ma'am." He didn't recognize his own exhaustion-roughened voice.

"Quatre? What are you still doing here? Your shift ended hours ago!" He tried to focus of the voice but he was finding that hard to do.

"I was needed, I had to help Po with one of the soldiers with battle fatigue (1) , then she needed an assistant for a double amputation…" His voice drifted off as Cathy pulled him toward the exit.

"How many hours straight have you been awake?" She demanded and in his exhaustion he responded honestly to her no nonsense tone.

"Don't know…lost count at around 36." She frowned at him and would have berated him for his stupidity, but found she didn't have the heart to. She sighed and desided to drop the subject.

"I was in the process of looking for you when you bumped into me. A young soldier with unusually long hair wanted to see you. I was going to look for you at your tent right after I checked to see if Relena was in here. I was worried when she didn't come back from that officers tent."

"She went to the officers' tents? Closer to the front?" Quatre was more alert now.

"Yes, one of them had come down with malaria and was too sick to move. She should have been back hours ago." Cathy bit her bottom lip in anxiety over her fellow nurse. A myriad of possible causes for Relena's absents flitted through her mind, and none of them were good.

"Don't worry Cathy," Quatre patter her shoulder," I'll go see what Duo has to say and then I'll look for her. There's probably a very simple explanation for her disappearance. 

"Your right, I'm just worrying over nothing." She sighed in relief and then rubbed her red-rimmed eyes.

"I'm going back to my tent now. I hope you get some sleep soon Captain Winner." Quatre absently waved to her departing back.

@--;--- ( 1.) (If my memory servers me right, battle fatigue was the term used for Post Dramatic Stress Disorder during WWI. Post Dramatic Stress Disorder can some times change the personality of one who develops it.  Bringing out violent or obsessive tendencies. I don't know much about it beyond personal experience with my father who developed PDS after a helicopter crash.)

@--;---

A few minutes later Quatre arrived at his own tent to find Duo waiting for him. The sky above was just beginning to lighten, and what few stars remained were quickly disappearing with the darkness. Dou looked quite content sitting in the sand in front of the entrance, a harmonica gently placed against his lips. Obviously it wasn't his, because the sounds coming out of the small instrument were anything but harmonious.

"You should stick to the piano, Duo. You play it much better than that thing." He plopped down beside his old friend in the sand, being careful to watch for scorpions and other such creepy-crawlies.

"But I can't carry a piano in my pocket Q-man." The look he sent Quatre told him that Duo thought that had been a very stupid piece of advice. Quatre shrugged and reached for the harmonica. He held it up to catch the light and to get a better look at its silver casing. He noticed the initials H.K.B inscribed over the surface. 

"H.K.B…those aren't your initials…" Quatre commented. Duo quickly grabbed the harmonica away from him and slipped it safely back into his pocket.

"I won it off a young kid who really wanted a couple of smokes. " He commented casually. Quatre just shook his head. Duo would always be Duo and that meant he wasn't above cheating in a card game to get what he wanted.

  Quatre's thoughts turned to other things. He remembered the piano lessons that Lady Peacecraft had given the three of them as children. No matter how hard Relena and he practiced, Duo always did better. He could play the piano like one of the masters. Lady Peacecraft had always been saddened by the fact that her young prodigy hadn't had any interest in doing anything with his talent.

"Hey, do you still play that violin of yours?" Duo asked. He too was remembering those long ago childhood days when the three of them had nothing better to do than sit and make music all day.

"I haven't played in a long time Duo, but I'm sure I could pick it back up." Quatre smiled.

"And Relena, I wonder if she still plays her clarinet?" His tone was wishful. Quatre turned thoughtfully to stair at the pink sunrise. He was still exhausted, but somehow talking to Duo took some of the over powering need to sleep away.

"We can ask her when we see her—oh I nearly forgot, Nurse Bloom said that Relena never returned from a house call near the front. Have you seen her about?" Quatre noticed the curious way Duo seemed to choke at his question. He raised his eyebrow and waited for the older man to clear his throat.

"Well you see, buddy, that's why I came. I know where she is, but I don't think your going to like what I have to tell you very much." His voice had gone deep and serious; something Quatre rarely heard.

"Is she okay? Is she hurt? What's going on, **where's** Relena?" Quatre demanded. His heart was racing and a knot of fear was forming in his gut. If anything happened to Relena he'd---

"Relax, Q-man, it's not that bad. She's safe. You see, Heero—"

"I knew it!! I knew **he** had something to do with it!"

"---took her away from here. She's sick; Quatre, and you know it. She's got all the symptoms of malaria and it's going to get worse here in this hellhole any day. He's contacted friends in Cairo who will meet him in Abadan. They'll take her back to the Peasemillion where Mill and Lu can treat her." Duo explained this as quickly as he could to the distraught young man before him. He had known since childhood that Quatre fancied himself in love with the young Peacecraft heiress and he knew what this news would do to his friend.

  Quatre felt a tiny part of him relax. Now he wouldn't have to worry about her when the real danger came knocking at their door soon.

"These people, will they keep her safe? Do you trust them?" He had to know for sure before he could totally relax.

"Yes, in fact the Baroness, Lady Une, has saved my life many times. She'll be in good hands." Duo tried to reassure Quatre as best he could.

"Then if your sure…but mark my word Duo, if the Major hurts her again I won't be responsible for what I do. I can't take her going through that again."

"You'll have to stand in line, because if he dreams of treating her like he did last time I want first dibs on kicking his ass."

@--;---

The early morning silence was disturbed by the loud sound of an approaching motor. A small desert lizard slowly raised its head from the rock it had been sunning on. Its yellow reptilian eyes followed the black motorcar as it zoomed down the barely recognizable path. Inside the car Heero Yuy glanced back at his precious cargo. The young woman was beginning to stir slightly in her sleep because of the jarring of the rough terrain.

   What was he going to tell her when she woke up to learn he'd kidnapped her for the second time? Given the first time had been more of a hostage situation than an actual kidnapping. He remembered her reaction the first time he showed up at one of her family's dinner parties.

~~~Flashback~~~

His face showed no emotion as he went through the traditional receiving line. He recognized Benjamin Peacecraft's daughter immediately as the girl who had stumbled onto his mission days earlier. Her simple high-waisted violet dress brought out the murky blue of her eyes. He sneered to himself for even noticing such a thing. She held out her hand to be kissed without even looking at his face. She apparently didn't enjoy this sort of thing because she was obviously not paying attention.

"It's nice to see you again Lady." He smirked at the surprise that flashed across her face.

"It's **you!!**" she bristled immediately at the sight of him in front of her.

"It's nice to know I'm remembered so fondly." He was mocking her openly now. She narrowed her eyes and glared hard into his eyes.

"As if I'd give murdering sum like you the time of day---"

"Ah, Relena, I see you've met the young Major Yuy already." Her father spoke from behind her. She turned to see his smiling face and she opened her mouth to tell him just where she had met this cur.

"Yes, Lord Peacecraft, I had the good fortune of meeting your lovely daughter at the Hanging Gardens last week. She was having trouble with a young cad and I stepped in to aid her." Heero smiled charmingly at her father before sending a warning look at Relena. She stiffened slightly at the implied threat, but never the less confirmed his story.

"Y-yes Papa, the Major was very gallant." Her father looked slightly worried and turned to the Major.

"I'd like to speak more in depth with you later on this matter if you don't mind Yuy." Benjamin sent Heero a warning glance of his own. Heero nodded his understanding to his superior. When Heero glanced back to where the intriguing young woman had been standing, he was surprised to see that she had slipped off when his attention was on her father.

~~~End Flashback~~~

Her father had been very angry when Heero admitted to the breech in security that Relena had caused. He was even angrier that he hadn't been informed right away. But any angry that he might have shown previously paled in comparison with the rage he showed when Heero mentioned that some of his contacts had seen her face clearly. In the end it was desided that Heero would stay close to the girl until they were sure that she was in no danger. That should have been an easy assignment; keep the girl out of harms way while he waited for information on his partners new solo mission, but that summer hadn't been anything he'd expected it to be.

  Heero glanced again at the girl to see that she was awake and staring disorientated at the top of the vehicle. 

"Ah, I see your awake Miss Peacecraft."

And that's when she threw her boot at him.

@--;---

AN.

Hitomi: *Waves* HI! Notice with me if you will that this chapter is actually on time!!!!!

*a round of applause*

Hitomi: Thank you, Thank you

Now to get on with this note, I don't own the song "So I need you" by three doors down. I don't own GW either, if I did by some slim chance own it I would have thrown in at least one sex scene between Heero and Relena…as it is, I've thought about buying stock in Bandai…. But I don't think that you can buy stock with pocket lent you've found in the dryer….

Also, I need to know, the songs that are at the beginning of the chapter, do they take away from the mood of the chapters? Ya' see, for the most part, I haven't even listened to the song before; I just found the lyrics and thought they fit. Not knowing what the song sounds like, I don't know if having it stuck in your heads is a good thing or a bad thing….So now that I've rambled on…and on…and on…could someone tell me?

Oh and I want to thank all of those reviewers that stick with me through thick and thin…some of you have been with me from the beginning of Life at Cinq High. I thank you for your patience and the love you've shown me!!!!! I also want to thank personally all those that have e-mailed me!! You get a peanut butter cookie!!!!!!!!

I don't know how much I like this chapter because I wrote it without the help of my trusty muse Rice Ball. You see I loaned him out to a friend that had an English paper due. She didn't read the instructions I sent with him and gave the little guy chocolate because she thought being hyped up would make him spit out ideas faster. The poor ball of rice almost died, being allergic to chocolate like he is. So for the next couple of chapters he's going to be absent. The Doctor told me he's to have complete bed rest.

Anyway, enough about him, I've got to go now because tonight is "family" night, so I have to go…we're watching a movie about a horse…Spirit or something like that…Got to go pop the corn!!!!

Smoochies!!!

Hitomi Lei A.K.A The purple Ghost.


	6. By My Side

By My Side

They blazed a trail I dared to run  
They built this world and I have come  
I need another, like a brother  
For a cryin' shoulder

This could be the last time, you will  
Stand by my side  
I can feel my soul it's bleeding, will you fly  
With me this evening

Sober mind time now is gone, they carved my  
Body not of stone  
A pretty maze emptiness, I've said the hell  
With all the rest

This could be the last time, you will  
Stand by my side  
I can feel my soul it's bleeding, will you fly  
With me tonight

This could be the last time, you will  
Stand by my side  
I can feel my soul it's bleeding, will you fly  
With me this evening

@--;---

  For the first time in days there was a breeze, but the wind only served to blow the billowing plumes of pungent black smoke from exploding bombs into the faces of those that were trying desperately to make sense of the chaos surrounding the military camp. The fighting at the front lines was heavy now, hundreds of wounded poured into the hospital daily. So many, in fact, that they had finally ran out of space inside the tents, now those newly brought in were laid on the ground around the tents. 

   The word had come late two days ago that a daring forward thrust from the British had taken Kut. Even though reinforcements had come from Abadan, General Crawford had only been able to muster a little more than thirteen thousand men. It had been a surprising victory against the Turks. The lure of Baghdad, forty miles away, became irresistible.

Within hours the Sixth Division was already advancing up the Tigris. One more battle against the oft-defeated Turks seemed a reasonable risk to the General, even though once captured Baghdad could not be secured. Most here on the front lines were aware of what was happening. Rumors of the inadequacy of the British force, and the fact that it was being concealed form military superiors in India and London, flew around the camp thicker than the mosquitoes. A victory was deemed needful, and the general was willing to push ahead. 

 The logistical situation was also chaotic. Basra, the only port supporting the British troops, still had no wharves. Ships had to be unloaded at anchor by native boats, causing delays in the port that averaged six weeks. Many critically needed items, like medicine and water purification, were not available. 

There was an insufficient amount of riverboat to support Crawford, who required more than two hundred tons of supplies daily. He was only receiving three-fourths of that. But despite these setbacks, Crawford launched his sick, ill-equipped men against an equal number of Turks who were strongly entrenched.

  Quatre tried to blink the film out of his eyes. It had been three days since Relena's departure, two days since the field hospital had moved out with the 6th. All around him chaos reigned, nurses ran about trying to help those that needed it most, placing little flags beside the soldiers who had been looked over. Each color flag represented the patient's condition, letting the doctors know whom they could help, and which soldiers were hopeless cases. Quatre could see too many black flags.

  His vision blurred again and he rubbed at his eyes with his palm to clear them. The continuous thunder of the battle raging less that half a mile away had ceased to bother his ears long hours ago.

"Ho! Captain Winner, I need you over here quick!" A nurse called from a few feet away. He hurried over and kneeled beside the prone figure of the soldier she was treating.

"Cathy?" He glanced down at the young man and had to hide his wince. No mater how many gut shots he saw, the sight still caused bile to raise up in his throat.

"Cathy?" He had to clear his throat before he could call her name again, "What do you want?" She looked at him with a kind of shocked desperation that made his heart break.

"Quatre, you've got to fix him!" She cried out. The patient moaned and twisted in agony.

"Cathy—you...you know that I can't…he's…" Quatre was at a loss for words. The young man had caught the bullet square in the stomach; it was a surprise that he was even still alive. Catherine caught his sleeve when he would have turned away. Her hands were shaking and her voice refused t hold steady.

"Y-you don't understand! I know him…Jack…H-he was in the circus…he h-h-has a w-w-ife and…" She yanked at his sleeve as if by sheer force she could hold him here; make him heal her friend. Quatre looked at her hopelessly and gently tried to remove her hand from his arm. A few rows over he could see Dr. Po waving for him to come over.

"Catherine, I have to—"

"NO! HELP HIM!" Her voice was shrill and loud even over the noise of the sick. Quatre watched as she quickly fell into hysteria. Uncontrollable tears ran down her face and she continued to yell at him to do something, any thing, for the man at their feet. At that moment, Quatre wanted nothing more than to do what she bid him do, but he couldn't. No mater how much he hated it the simple truth was that they couldn't waste valuable medical supplies on patients that had no hope of surviving. He tried to soothe her with his voice, but she was beyond receiving it now.

"Calm down now!" He reached out and shook her shoulders, trying to bring her back to reality. Dr. Po had now begun yelling at him to leave the hysterical nurse for someone else to handle, but Quatre couldn't, not yet.

"No, I'll not calm down! Not until you do—" Her tirade was cut short by the sting of Quatre's palm against her check. Catherine turned shocked eyes on him. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.

"Now, you have to get a hold of yourself, Cathy! Men are dying because you're not helping them. You don't have time to break down, do it later Cathy, later! Right now you need to help these men!" He accented each point with a little shake of her shoulders. Guilt for the rough way he was treating her filled his heart, but he pushed it aside. She nodded her head jerkily and pulled away from him. Quickly he pressed a hard kiss to her forehead then ran off to help Dr. Po who, by now had grabbed another orderly, having given up totally of Quatre.

"We'll talk about that later Winner." She growled as he hurried past her to where another Doctor was bent over a soldier that had apparently lost a foot.

"Yes ma'am." He answered her, but his mind really wasn't on whatever punishment the stern doctor would lay on him, it was on the way his heart felt, as if it was slowly withering away.

@--;---

The room was small, dark, overheated, and only weak sunlight shone in through the cracked window.  The furnishings were even less impressive than the room itself, if that could be possible. The wooden table had long ago lost one of its legs in some unknown circumstance, and now was propped forlornly against the yellow wall. The only chairs that occupied the room could barely live up to being called that; they were more like low stools. The only other thing in the room was a pallet made of blankets in the corner farthest away from the doorway. 

 But for all of it's apparent shabbiness it was clean, and for that Relena was very thankful. Her eyes were red and fever-dulled as she lay on top of the bedding in the corner. Heero had barely shown his face since they had arrived in Abadan after two full days of travel. That had been three days ago, and Relena was beginning to wonder if she had been kidnapped only to be abandoned here in this small room.

'Five days…Why do I feel like a coward for leaving? I had no control over it.

Maybe it's because you feel relief to be out of that hell?

NO!…I mean…how could I let myself feel that way?"

A knock at the door interrupted Relena's thoughts. It swung open on squeaky hinges. Framed in the doorway stood a short blonde woman who was trying her best to balance a plate of food in one hand and a cup of weak tea in the other.

"Miss Relena, I've brought you lunch. The Major says you must eat this time!" She was the wife of the commanding officer stationed here. Relena seemed to recall that her name was Sylvia.

"Tell him if he wants me to eat he can feed me himself." Relena murmured in a dark tone. She thought she'd said it too low for the other woman to hear, but Sylvia's shocked gasp proved otherwise.

"M-Miss Relena! You surly don't mean that!" She sat the plate down and began to ring her hands in vexation. Relena felt guilty at upsetting her, after all Sylvia had been looking after her faithfully for three days.

"I'm sorry Mrs." For a moment she was at loss over what the woman's surname had been," Noventa. You didn't deserve my unkind words just now." She offered the smaller woman a slight smile, but it came off more as a grimace of pain. Sylvia pulled one of the stools over and sat beside Relena's bed before handing the sick girl her tea.

"There now, I understand how it feels to deal with stubborn men, they can be frustrating beyond belief, but you must drink your tea if you want to get over this sickness." The little woman glared sternly over at Relena.

'I wonder if you truly understand what it's like to love someone that thinks kidnapping you is an expectable behavior as long as he's "saving" you from yourself?'

"Okay, I'll drink the tea, but I'm not very hungry." Relena looked away so that she wouldn't see the disappointed look in the other woman's eyes.

"Miss Peacecraft…"

"Please tell Major Yuy that if he has a problem with how I'm eating he can address it himself." Relena took a sip from the cup and tried not to pull a face at the strong taste of the medicine. She heard the older woman draw in a breath.

"He says to tell you that he's been very busy trying to contact your brother in Cairo."

"Milliardo and Lu are in Alexandria by now. She was going to have her baby at the family home." Relena informed her with little emotion.

"Why didn't you tell me that earlier?" Relena looked toward the low doorway to see Heero standing there. She hadn't seen him since their arrival here and she couldn't help running her eyes over the slim lines of his frame. Her hand automatically rose to smooth down her tangled hair. Heero smirked when he noticed her action. She let her hand fall back into her lap.

"I don't recall you asking me the whereabouts of my brother." She raised her eyebrow as he came farther into the room, "What, the great Heero Yuy can finally spare the time to visit? Are you sure you can afford such a waist of precious time on me?" She threw the words up at him spitefully. Mrs. Noventa cringed and looked over at Heero apologetically. 

"It's the fever talking, she really doesn't mean to sound so unpleasant." Relena had to hold in a retort as Heero glanced at the officer's wife.

"Oh, I'm sure Lady Peacecraft means every scathing word, Madam. Now if you'll excuse us, the lady and I need to speak in private." He made a motion to shoo the woman out of the room but she would have none of it.

"You must have a chaperon! I can't let the two of you be in here alone." Sylvia stood firm and crossed her arms. Heero lost the look of amusement in his eyes, but Relena was finding the situation a bit to her liking.

"Mrs. Noventa, this is not London. I doubt that my fiancé and I will be doing anything untoward with her in the condition that she's in." He managed to push the small woman out the door before Relena could throw anything at his head. He shut the door and readied himself for her verbal, or physical, attack. Nothing came. He turned around and saw that she was calmly sipping her tea as if she hadn't heard what he'd said to Sylvia Noventa.

"What, your not even going to hurl your tea cup at me for turning us into an engaged couple?" He mockingly asked her, "Or your shoe perhaps? Surly the thought of being linked with me in such a manner causes you distress."

"I would throw the cup, but I'd hate to destroy Mrs. Noventa's pretty china on your hard head." She handed the empty cup over to him and leaned back in her bed, "As for my shoe, I'd gladly send one flying your way, but you took them away from me, or don't you remember?"

"I seem to remember you throwing them at me while I was trying to drive, if that's what you mean." He reached over and picked up the plate that Noventa has left. He swirled the spoon around in the thick stew then lifted it up to have a bite.

"You know, after living off swill for months, I'd think you'd want to eat the food here. It might not be much to look at, but it's good." He turned to spoon toward her but she waved it away.

"I'm really not hungry." She insisted. 

"Relena, don't play the martyr. No one will know it if you die for them." He took another bite of the stew before sitting it aside.

"I'm not playing the martyr as you suggest. I just don't feel like eating." She repeated herself with more force.

'He had no right to suggest that, and of course he's not right!'

"Relena, why don't you at least try to swallow a few bites? I'm leaving in the morning and I don't want a starving nurse on my conscience." He handed her the plate.

"Like you have a con-wait your leaving?" she sat up straighter but she didn't hand the plate back.

He nodded solemnly, "I told Duo I'd be back in seven days. From what I've been able to gather the British took Kut and are now headed for Baghdad. I'll be needed to help clean up this mess." He watched as she absently took a small bite of the stew. 

"I didn't know you were planning on leaving." Relena replied neutrally. 'He's going back? He's leaving me here? How could he!'

"I've contacted a woman by the name of Lady Ann Une," He met her eyes, "I think you've heard of her? She left Cairo yesterday for Abadan. She should be here in under a week to take you back. Once there you're to stay with her until your brother can come and retrieve you."

"Retrieve me? Heero, you make me sound like the prized hunting dog! Don't I get a say in this?" then she answered her own question, "Of course I don't get a say! If I did, I wouldn't be here in this dank little room!" Relena seethed. She tried to stand, but found she lacked the strength. Suddenly she was too tired to even hold the plate in her lap anymore. It slipped to the floor with a soft clatter, sending pieces of limp vegetables over on Heero's shiny black boots.

"Relena?" He asked in concern when he saw her hands go limp.

"I'm so very tired Heero, so tired that I just don't care anymore." He moved over to the pallet and hunkered down beside her.

"Hey, I never wanted you to totally give up. I'm just trying to take care of you, okay?" He smoothed her hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ear. She found that she didn't care whether or not his actions were uncharacteristic; Relena leaned into his touch.

"Promise me you'll come back this time?" She whispered.

"I promise." He pulled her closer to him and wrapped his arms around her thin frame. Relena knew that his promise was really only to make her happy, but she didn't care.

"I'm going to fall asleep soon. You'd better go before Mrs. Noventa has a coronary behind that door." She smiled against he chest. This closeness felt just like old times for them.

"Ah, so you knew she was behind there too?" She liked the sound of the amused rumbled in his chest. "I think I'll just stay here until you drift off."

So Relena fell asleep in the arms of a man she had despised just hours earlier, and Heero got to hold the only woman he'd ever loved. As he left the small room he ignored the glare Sylvia sent him. When she tried to scurry into the room he grabbed her arm to stop her.

"Miss Peacecraft is asleep now. I managed to talk her into eating a little bit and she finished her tea. Tomorrow I'll be leaving. In a few days a Lady Ann Une will show up and pay you for taking care of Relena as I promised." He then left her standing in the hallway.

@--;---

The British had managed to penetrate the first and second lines of the trenches, but they lacked the strength to turn opportunity into victory. Nur-ud-Din successfully counterattacked every move the British made past that point. The battle cost Crawford over four thousand men.

The wounded kept arriving at the already overflowing hospitals. Soon even blankets to lie on the ground ran out, but still the wounded kept pouring in. As soon as one was bandaged, there was another hollow-faced patient waiting to take his place. All around, severely wounded soldiers were laid out, inert, on stretchers.

The day after the most disastrous fighting had taken place, Crawford collected his wounded from the battlefield while Nur-ud-Din received reinforcements. The British began withdrawing, with the Turks in aggressive pursuit.

On that wretched and bleak afternoon of the lost battle, Hilde—along with every available nurse and medic that hadn't been sent to the trenches to treat the wounded there--- was ministering to the injured who had managed to get to the hospital. The sun beat down without mercy, yet nothing could be done to bring the relief of shade since there wasn't a canvas big enough around to cover the rows and rows of wounded. The medical corps strung fly netting at intervals, but still there were gaps between those in the shade and the soldiers forced to endure the sun. The workers spent hours rotating the men and bringing water by the barrel to try to quench their patients' fevered thirsts.

A dozen ambulances were taking the less gravely wounded men to the rear, but however many were taken away, more were brought in. The wounds that Hilde was seeing made her turn away often and wonder how a man could be so mutilated and live. It twisted her heart to turn away without giving the poor souls any aid, but there were so many soldiers needing help that the nurses had been commanded not to waste time or medicine on the hopeless cases. Even though she knew those in command were right in giving that order, obeying the command weighed heavy on her raw heart.

From across the way a well-known figure was making his way toward her. Hilde continued to fan the flies away from a patient while she waited for him to come to her.

"I never knew it could get this bad." She commented dully when as he knelt and helped her smear foul smelling camphor salve on the face and neck of the man lying prone of the ground.

"I thought you were the pessimistic one. You should have expected it to get much worse." He helped her pull her medical bag over to the next moaning patient.

"Never in all my dour thoughts did I imagine this." The distant sound of artillery fire punctuated her words. Duo turned and looked toward the horizon. The 6th was withdrawing and they were hoping to escape ahead of the Turkish army to Kut.

"Hilde, Heero just got back, and it's not good. This hospital should have been evacuated hours ago. I'm getting out of here as soon as I can find Quatre, and I want you to come with us." He pulled her to her feet but she resisted.

"But Duo? What about the wounded? And Quatre is in the trenches with Dr. Po and Catherine…or at least that's where they were all headed yesterday." Duo swore loudly and looked around.

"Hilde, I have to go find Quatre. You needed to find Heero. He was in the north of camp last I saw." He turned and would have hurried away, but she called out to him slightly panicked.

"But what about the soldiers!" He turned around but didn't answer, because he didn't have one to give. He left her then, running toward the incoming ambulance, shouting questions at them about the last known whereabouts of Dr. Po. 

The soldier who had been leading the ambulance camel left it to his fellow and started running down the lines shouting, "This is the order to evacuate! Check all flags! Only the red ones can be taken, the rest will be left behind!"

All around Hilde soldiers stated to cry out in pain and distress. She covered her ears. No. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. Command would never desert the wounded. No. Of course not. She turned in a daze and walked back to the men in the field. She did the only thing she could for them.

"There you go, soldier, that will make you feel better." Hilde handed him one of her last pain pills.

"Thank you angel." He chocked, looking at her through bleary eyes.

"It's going to be alright." She kept repeating that phrase over and over until it became her own personal anthem.

"Nurse are they leaving us?"

"It's going to be okay."

"God, please don't leave us here!"

"It's going to be okay!"

"Bloody cowards! You can't leave us"

**"It's going to be okay!!"**

The dreadful cycle came to a stop when Duo appeared out of nowhere beside her.

"I thought I told you to go find Yuy!" he was angry, seething, and she broke down.

"I can't leave them here! I just can't!"

"You have no choice! In two hours the bloody Turks are going to be here. Now if you're such a bleeding heart then you can by all means stay in this damn hell hole!" But he didn't give her the chance to do that. Duo grabbed her arm and started running through the rows of men toward the place he'd last seen Heero. Hilde felt the hands of the soldiers as they reached out toward her in supplication, but Duo didn't slow down.

They rounded a corner and ahead or them was Heero. He was helping to load wounded into one of the few transport truck that where available.

"It took you long enough Maxwell." He yelled at the couple that was fast approaching.

"I can't find Winner! I'm going back!" He grabbed Hilde around the waist and swung her up into the truck. She was too shocked to protest being shoved amidst a crowded truck.

"You can't go back in there!" Heero told his partner before turning to the woman that was sitting dazed on the edge of the truck bed.

"If you make it to Abadan look for Relena, she's there." He then waved the truck driver on.

"I have to look for him, Heero, he's my brother." Duo's voice was quiet but Heero heard him.

"Okay, then lets go find him." Heero drew his gun from the shoulder hoister he wore. He checked the rounds in the gun and ruefully shook his head. Duo just stared after him as the older man began to walk away.

"Well, are you coming or not?" Heero raised an eyebrow at his partner's hesitation.

"But you told me that you told Relena you'd come back!"

"And I plan to."

@--;---

AN: This chapter was hard to write. When I started writing this fic I had no idea that the location I'd picked for the setting would become such a talked about place. Well…I knew that Baghdad was always in the news…I guess what I mean to say is that I didn't even consider that a war would be going on over there soon.

I thought, when the war first started, that I would put this fic on hiatus, but after careful consideration I desided to keep on writing. This is the bloody history of a land steeped in bloodshed. I can't change that, so why not write about it?

I also want to make something very, very clear now…I don't want any reviews on whether or not you believe in this current war. I will not have my review page turned into a battleground of differing opinions. I'm very sorry if this offends some of you, but that's how I feel.

In other, lighter, topics, I don't own G-Wing!!! Now isn't that just the funniest thing you've ever heard? Oh and the song " By My Side" is by Three Doors Down. I don't own them either…

Oh and for all you super history buffs out there…you'll notice historical discrepancies in his fic if you look heard enough…so my advice is…DON'T LOOK!!

And in closing, I'd like to thank all of you who have reviewed…and as a lazy reader myself, I'd like to thank all of you who read and never review…if your coming back, I take it that you like.

Smoochies,

The Purple Ghost AKA Hitomi Lei


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